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THE STATE LAST: 



JL e^XJIDY 



OF 



DOCTOR BOUQUILLON'S PAMPHLET : 



Education : To zvhoni does it belons: f 



Mitb a Supplement 



> 
/ 



^ ^ 



DR. BOUQUILLON'S REJOINDER TO CRITICS, 




I^EV. James 60NWAy, \ 

Canisius College, Buffalo, N. Y. 



t 18; ) 



SECOND REVISED EDITION. 



1892 



FR. PUSTET, 
Printer to the Holy Apostolic See and the S. Oongregation of Rites^ 



P^E.. i^xj3T]E:a" (Sc Co., 

New York and Cincinnati. 



U.^i\ 



>) 



\^\ % 



Ci 



Copyright, 1892, 
BY ERWIN STBINBACK, 
Firm of Fr. Pustet & Ck). 



PREFACE. 

The study of which these pages contain the result was begun im- 
mediately after the publication of Dr. Bouquillon's pamphlet. The 
author, having himself once travelled the same ground, was naturally 
eager to compare notes with the learned Doctor. He had no inten- 
tion, however, of rushing into print, especially as he thought he had 
already said all he had to say on the matter. But believing, as he 
read, that certain authors with whose teaching he was familiar were 
misconceived and misconstrued, and judging that some of the leading 
principles laid down were either false or misleading, and that the 
whole tenor of the brochure was likely rather to prove detrimental 
than advantageous to the cause of Catholic education in this country 
he did finally come to the determination to prepare a review of Dr. 
Bouquillon's teaching for the press. 

His work was well nigh finished when, after the conference of the 
Archbishops held in St. Louis at the beginning of December last, he 
was given to understand from a reliable source that discussion — at least 
in the form of personal controversy — was no longer desirable. So he 
cheerfully shelved his work and devoted himself to more peaceful and 
congenial occupations. 

Seeing, however, that the controversy was not only continued, but 
even waxed fiercer than ever, after the St. Louis conference, and that 
Dr. Bouquillon's doctrine was not only publicly defended, but freely 
cited in favor of the theory and practice of state education, the author 
soon came to the conclusion that discussion was not only not undesirable, 

3 



4 Preface. 

but plainly invited, and even necessary. He, therefore, readily yielded 
to the many kindly solicitations brought to bear upon him by his 
friends, took his notes again from the shelf, and arranged them for the 
press. It was not for some weeks, however, that his local superiors, 
who were naturallly opposed to all personal controversy, could prevail 
upon themselves to give the necessary permission for the publication. 

After he had sent his study of Dr. Bouquillon's first pamphlet to 
the printers, the " Rejoinder to Critics " reached him. Though this sec- 
ond publication did not strictly concern him, yet he deemed it due to 
Dr. Bouquillon, and to the public to review it in a supplement to be 
appended to this essay. 

Though much has been written on the subject since his paper 
was practically finished, the author did not deem it expedient to 
make any material changes — not even after reading the Doctor's 
" rejoinder." He preferred to give his first impressions of Dr. Bou- 
quillon's brochure; which, for the rest have only been confirmed by 
whatever criticisms have since come under his notice. He endeavored 
to treat Dr. Bouquillon with that fairness and deference, which he 
would consider due to himself, and much more to a man of such 
deserved reputation and true merit as Dr, Bouquillon. Should a sin- 
gle word of this paper seem harsh, or unduly severe, to the readers the 
author would fain have it unsaid. 

Canisius College, Buffalo, N. Y. 

January 31, 1892. 



CONTENTS. 



Preface ..... ... 3 

I. Introduction 7 

II. Dr. Bouquillon's Arguments H 

III. Dr. Bouquillon's AuTHOMTiES 18 

IV. Dr. Bouquillon's Method 43 

V. Details of Dr. Bouquillon's Procedure ... 46 

VI. Conclusion. . . 7i 

Supplement — Dr. Bouquillon's Rejoinder . . 81 



ThK Sl^JLTK I^JLST. 



A Study of Dr. Bouquillon's Pamphlet. 

Education : to whom, does it Belong ? 

I. Introduction. 

Dr. Bouquillon's long looked for ' pamphlet has brought thus much 
satisfaction to those interested in the juridical aspect of education, 
that the advocates of state education now know all that can be said 
in their favor, while the defenders of domestic rights against state 
encroachment have learned how little can be advanced against them. 
However, we cannot consider the general effects of this publication 
as by any means gratifying to either party, beneficial to the Church, 
or serviceable to any good purpose. The general impression we 
believe is disappointment. Dr. Bouquillon's opponents, who, we 
believe, form the bulk of those interested and capable of having an 
opinion on so difficult a matter, are disappointed, though not dis- 
agreeably, that only so light a force could be mustered against them 
from such a quarter aroused to hostilities. Many of them expected 
a much more formidable array. Those few, on the other hand, who are 
known to covet and court state interference were doubtless more 
painfully disappointed at finding so weak a support upon which to 

' It is now an open secret, made common property by Dr. Bouquillon's own friends, 
that his pamphlet was written for the American Catholic Quarterly Review, but rejected 
by the editors, for reasons which will probably strike the reader as he peruses these 
pages. Its publication as a separate pamphlet was awaited early last summer ; but 
for reasons best known to the author, it was withheld from the public until the latter 
part of November last, about ten days before the meeting of the Archbishops in St. 
Louis ; at which meeting the school question was to come under consideration. How 
far this delay was premeditated, or accidental, we do not take upon ourselves to judge. 

See Northwestern Chronicle December ii, 1891, and January i, 1892. Cf. The parent 
Jirst hy Rev. R. I. Holaind, S. J., Preface. 

7 



8 . The State Last. 

rest their cause. Besides, this class of social philosophers are used 
to frothy declamation rather than sober reasoning; and Dr. Bouquil- 
lon, instead of spreading the American eagle to their wondering 
gaze surprised them with a modest, severe, albeit scholarly, disserta- 
tion, giving them all the benefit of his profound erudition and varied 
reading in almost rigid scholastic form. Were Dr. Bouquillon less 
of a scholar and more of a demagogue he would, we think, have 
written a more satisfactory, and probably a more successful, plea for 
state education. 

We unhesitatingly call Dr. Bouquillon's pamphlet a plea for state 
education^ although he himself does not introduce it as such, and 
although he does not confine himself exclusively to the discussion 
and defence of state rights. The proportions of the book itself, to 
say nothing of the animus with which it is written, justifies this view 
of it. For, apart from the introductory and concluding remarks, we 
find that fully two-thirds of the space is devoted to the defence of 
the rights, duties and power of the state, while only one-third is left 
to the treatment of the rights, the mission, and the authority of the 
individual, the family and the Church. Whatever share, then, the 
state may have in the education of the child, it gets, at least, the 
lion's share of the pamphlet. It might, therefore, be justly entitled: 
The State versus individual, family and Church — not that the author 
wishes to give undue rights to the state, but that he is so very anxious 
to give it its dues as against the individual, the family and the 
Church. This is a sort of distributive justice very commendable in 
the learned moralist; but he should also remember the old saw: 
Su?nmujnjus, summa injuria. The greatest right is often the greatest 
wrong. 

The purport and motive of the learned author, as we read in his 
preface is " to show that in the matter of education as in all other 
social concerns the true doctrine of the Church is opposed neither to 
liberty well understood nor to the just prerogatives of the state." 
Those " just prerogatives of the state," are, as we subsequently learn, 
the right to educate, strict, special and proper. The Doctor's point, 
therefore, as we understand it, is this: That the state has the right to 
educate, in the ordinary sense of this word ; that this right is a special 
and proper right {p. ii), such as the state has to govern and to judge, i. e., 
through its delegates {p. 12); that having such right it has also the mis- 



Introdttctton. g 

si'on, or obligation to educate [p. i8, sq.), and certain authority or co7itrol 
over education [p. 2j, sq.). 

Now, in this proposition, taken in its generality, there is much that 
is unobjectionable. That the state has a certain control over edu- 
cation may be conceded; but the extent of this control must be 
defined by certain principles and concrete circumstances; else it 
does little towards the solution of the problem on hand. That the 
state has an educational mission (or, in the Doctor's meaning, a cer- 
tain duty in regard to education) is also beyond dispute. But that the 
state has a right, special B-nd proper to educate, in the accepted mean- 
ing of this word, as it has to govern and to fudge by its agents, we 
cannot grant; and this is the precise point on which we take issue 
with the learned Doctor, as far as principles are concerned — and he 
. strictly confines himself to the discussion of principles. We deny 
that the state is an educator per se, or has the special and proper 
right to educate, (this right we vmdicate in the natural order to parents 
exclusively); though we do grant the state extensive rights, a certain 
mission, and certain authority in regard to education. We have 
treated this question at length long before the present controversy 
arose; and on further reflection, in the light of all that has been 
written since upon the problem, we do not believe that we have modi^ 
fied our opinion. In 1883 we summed up our views in these words: 
X " Abstracting from the prerogatives of the Church, we say that, 
according to the natural law, which is the basis of the moral order 
and of all positive legislation, education is the business of parents, 
to the exclusion of all others; that they have, therefore, the sacred 
and inviolable right to educate their own offspring, or intrust them 
to the care of those who will educate them, according to their moral 
and r^gious convictions; that the state, according to the same 
divinely-constituted order, should not be the educator of its children, 
but only the promoter and patron of education; that this is its only 
function in regard to education, by which alone it can lead the people 
to true civilization; that any further interference on the part of the 
state, in the matter of education, is not only violent and unjust, but 
must needs prove destructive to religion, to morality, to genuine 
culture, and to the social order of nations." ' 

' Respective Rights and Duties, etc., p. 32. (2 ed. ). New York, Pustet, 1890. Cf. 
American Catholic Quarterly Review, Jan., 1884. 



10 The State Last. 

We cannot afford here to set forth the arguments which led us to 
the above conclusions; we can only refer the reader to the preceding 
pages of the work cited. The point in which all arguments in sup- 
port of our position taken from reason meet is, in our opinion, the 
following: Parents have the indispensable duty, arising from the fact 
of procreation, by themselves, if possible, or by reliable representa- 
tives, if they themselves are unable to discharge this duty, personally, 
to educate their offspring actording to the dictates of conscience. 
Now, to an indispensable duty corresponds an inalienable right. 
Therefore parents have the inalienable right to educate their off- 
spring according to the dictates of their own conscience. The force 
of this argument is admitted by Dr. Bouquillon himself (p. lo) where 
he says: "This right of parents \% sacred; no one may suppress or 
diminish it; for it springs from a paramount duty'' (Italics ours). And 
he cites in confirmation of this assertion the unmistakable words of 
Leo XIII. to the Bavarian Bishops Dec. 22, 1878: " In these duties, 
assumed by the fact of the procreation of children, parents should 
know that just as many rights are inherent (inesse) according to 
natural right (naturam et sequitatem); and that these rights are 
such that they may not in aught dispense with them, that no human 
power can detract aught from them, since one cannot lawfully be 
absolved by man from the duties by which he is bound to God." ' 

Hence it is manifest that parents can never renounce or forfeit 
this right, to educate their own children, or to have them educated 
by teachers, or in schools, of their own choosing — not even by free 
suffrage in a democratic commonwealth; for an inalienable right can 
no more be put at the mercy of a popular majority than in the hands 
of an absolute monarch or of a constitutional government. The 
only case thinkable in which this right can be forfeited is that of 
crime or inability (insanity, poverty, (&c.). Strange that Dr, Bouquil- 
lon, after stating the premises so clearly (p. 9-10) fails to see the 
conclusion, and rather goes out of his way to seek limitations to 
parental rights. 

' " Hisce in officiis simul cum procreatione liberoium susceptis, noverint patres- 
familias totidem jura inesse secundum naturam et requitatem, atque esse ejusmodi de 
quibus nihil liceat sibi remittere, nihil cuivis bominum potestati detrahere, quum officiis 
solvi, quibus homo teneatur ad Deum, sit per hominem nefas." Encycl. "Officio 
Sanctissimo." 



Dr. BoiiquilloTis Argiunents. • ii 

■ This is, briefly stated, our doctrine and the main argument on which 
it rests as contrasted with Dr. Bouquillon's teaching. It will be 
seen in the course of our investigation that it is the common teaching 
of Catholic writers, particularly of those cited by the Doctor in de- 
fence of his own opinion. It must be borne in mind, however, that 
we have to deal with Dr. Bouquillon's teaching, not to establish an 
argument or a consensus of theologians and philosophers. We shall, 
therefore, introduce positive matter only in as far as it will be deemed 
expedient, to show the untenableness of the Doctor's position. 

In order to treat Dr. Bouquillon's pamphlet with that thorough- 
ness and completeness due to the work of so eminent a man, and re- 
quired by the importance of the subject, we shall examine: — 

1. ffts arguments. 

2. Hi's autho7'ities. 

3. His tnethod. 

4. Some details of his procedure. After this is done we shall have 
something to say in conclusion of its general character and its oppor- 
tuneness. 

II. Dr. Bouquillon's Arguments. 

If we have rightly understood the Doctor's process of reasoning he 
has two chief arguments; the one of a general, the other of a more 
special nature. 

I. The first argument we take to be this: Every person., whether 
physical or moral, i.e., every individual, or corporation, has a right to 
educate. But the state is a moral person, or corporation. Therefore 
the state has a right to educate. 

If the ?naJor of this syllogism is granted the conclusion is inevit- 
able; as the minor is evidently true. Therefore the author is con- 
cerned only with the major and devotes to it the greater part of 
pages 7-9 under the heading: Right of Educating in the Individual. 
This whole section is apparently directed against the positive right 
theory, which claims that the right of education is derived from, or 
delegated by, sovereign authority, or positive legislation. The con- 
clusion we find referred to (p. 11), where the author says: " It were 
unreasonable to refuse to the state that which is granted to every 
legitimate association [i.e., the vague and general right to educate]." 
But what of the major 7 



12 The State Last. 

We grant as against the positive right theory that the right to teach 
is an individual, personal, or domestic right, antecedent to, and inde- 
pendent of, all positive law or enactment. But is this right vested 
in every individual, whether physical person or corporation ? This 
we deny, unless we are to understand by education the mere commu- 
nication of thoughts and ideas. But to communicate one's thoughts 
or ideas is not to teach in the sense of educating. And herein lies the 
Doctor's fallacy. He proceeds from a defective definition of educa- 
tion. We insert the entire passage lest we should seem to misre- 
present the Doctor's meaning. 

What is education ? In a large sense it is to communicate what we knoiu to one who 
docs not know. In a restricted sense it is to co?nmienicaie after a methodical and contm- 
uoits fashion knowledge relative to religion, morals, letters, sciences, the arts ; or, it is 
to instruct and train childhood and youth. But every man has the right to communicate 
the truths and to communicate it after the fashion that is most efficacious and best 
adapted to those who wish to receive it. For this he needs no mandate from govern- 
ment. To allow to every citizen the right of expressing opinions by speech or by the 
press, and at the same time to deny him, as is done in some countries, the right of 
teaching is a monstrous contradiction. (Italics ours). ' 

This definition of education, on which is based the Doctor's argu- 
ment is altogether insufficient. The idea of education is not covered 
by that of teaching or instructing; much less by the idea of inci- 
dental communication of ideas. The salient, the essential feature of 
education is the training of the human faculties, the building up of 
the perfect man or woman, the development of human power, the di- 
rection of youth in the way it should walk to gain its end in this life 
and the life to come. 

Cardinal Gibbons in Our Christian Heritage (p. 489) justly empha- 
sizes the necessity of a clear and correct definition, and brings out 
prominently this feature, of education. " I am persuaded," he says, 
" that the popular errors now existing in reference to education spring 

' Dr. Bonquillon allowed himself to be misled to this definition by his admired 
friend Sauvd, from whom he takes it almost ad verbum. " Pris dans son sens le plus 
general, Tenseignement signifie la communication d'une chose quePonsait aquelqu'un 
qui Vignore (p. 236) .... Pris dans un sens plus restreint, I'enseignement signifie la 
f07nmunicatio7i methodique et continice de connaissances relatives ^ la religion, h. la 
morale, aux lettres, aux sciences et aux arts, ou, si Ton vent, I'instruction et I'education 
de I'enfance et de la jeunesse. Dans ce second sens, comme dans le premier, I'enseig. 
nement n'est un droit que s'il s'applique ^ des connaissances qu'il soit licite de commu- 
niquer aux autres." Questions religieuses et sociales, p. 238. 



Dr. Bouqiiillon s Argiunents. 1 3 

from an incorrect notion of that term. To educate means to bring out, 
to develop the intellectual, moral and religious faculties of the soul. 
An education then which improves the mind and the memory, to the 
neglect of moral and religious training, is at best but an imperfect 
system." 

Instruction is but a subordinate function, albeit necessary, in the 
entire process of education. To teach, therefore, in the sense of ed- 
ucating impUes much more than merely to communicate knowledge 
to one who does not possess it. ' The teacher, that is, the educator, 
has to deal with the intellectual, moral and religious life, growth and 
development of the child. This is a sacred function into which no 
intruder may thrust himself. One has no more right to undertake 
the instruction or education of another's child without his consent, 
than one has the right to plow or sow or reap his neighbor's field. 
The reason is this: the right to teach, in the sense of educating, sup- 
poses authority in the teacher and submission in the pupil; unless it 
is simply a question of contract between a teacher and grown up pupil; 
in which case the teacher may put conditions, but cannot exact obe- 
dience except conditionally. But such a relation between pupil and 
teacher can hardly be called education in the true sense of the word. 

Whence, then, does the schoolmaster derive his right or authority 
to teach ? Like every other right this right must be based on some 
fact; and here it is the fact by which the schoolmaster receives his 
pupils; for there is a co-relation between teacher and pupil. Now, by 
what facts can one become the educator of another ? By the very fact 
of procreation parents (the father in the first instance) become edu- 
cators, with strict duties and corresponding rights. The facts by 
which any other may become an educator are, as far as we can see, 
either free co7itr act hetv^een teacher and pupil (but in this case, there 
is hardly question of education in the strict sense), the choice of 
parents, or the incorporation in a teaching body (e.g., a college or 
university), by which fact pupils of such institution become his. 
Whatever authority the schoolmaster has over his pupils, therefore, 

' " Educationon in sola corporis nutritioneprimisinfantieeannis consistit; sed educatio 
est complexus omnium actionura, quibus non solum conservatio, sed et perfectio cor- 
poris atque animi liberorum et physica et intellectualis et moralis in facultatum evolu- 
tione usque ad adultam aetatem promovetur, ita ut liberi vitam natura rationali dignam 
et conditione parentum sociali saltern non inferiorem agere possint." Costa- Rossetti, 
Phil. Mor., ed. 2. p. 434. Cf. Respective Rights and Duties, etc., pp. 9-II. 



14 The State Last. 

(abstracting from ecclesiastical jurisdiction) is delegated by the 
parents, who either choose him personally or the institution to which 
he belongs. This, is as far as we could gather, the common opinion 
of Catholic writers on the authority of schools and schoolmasters. 

When, therefore, authors say that individuals have a right to educate 
they either mean the right of exchanging ideas, or the right of 
instructing the ignorant, which is a work of mercy that all have a 
right to perform, or the right of teaching the rudiments of the faith 
privately (not publicly) to those who are not instructed; or finally 
they understand a negative right (Dr. Bouquillon himself p. ii. 
calls it a "vague and general " right) i. e., a right not to be unjustly 
hindered from exercising the profession of teachers or educators, if 
possessed of the necessary attainments. But no other author, to our 
knowledge except Dr. Bouquillon simply and unqualifiedly vindi- 
cates to every individual the right to educate. ' 

On this assumption Dr. Bouquillon proceeds: "If every mdividual 
has the right of teaching what he is capable of teaching to whomso- 
ever will accept his teaching, a collection or legitimate association of 
men endowed with a like capability must have the like right" (p. 8). 
The condition of this hypothetical argument as we have seen is not 
verified, but requires to be essentially modified; and, therefore, 
the conditional conclusion calls for the same modification. Nay, 
more, we cannot refrain from noticing that the individual is in 
a much more favorable condition in regard to the right to educate, 
than societies and corporations as such. For every rational individ- 
ual is at least free to qualify himself for the office of teaching and to 
acquire the right to teach; but the case is different with societies; 
they can acquire this right only when teaching, or education, lies 
within their special scope. A base-ball association, for instance, or 
an insurance company, or the Farmers' Alliance, could hardly acquire 
the right of educating. And this, be it borne in mind, is true also of 
the state, if it can be shown that education as such is not one of its 
proper functions. 

The positive arguments adduced by Dr. Bouquillon (p. 9) have no 
force whatever. The Lateran Decree* referred to only forbids unjust 
exactions and the refusal of the license to teach to those who are 

* When we wrote the above we had not yet read Sauve's Liberie d'' enseignement. 
^ Decretales, lib. v. tit. 5, de Magistris, cc. Quoniajti and Quanta Gallicana. 



Dr. Boiiquillon s Arguments. 15 

qualified, but it manifestly supposes that the license itself must be ob- 
tained; and that from the ecclesiastical authorities. Abelard and the 
Professors of Padua and Verceil (Vercelli ?) received their authority 
to teach either by express or implicit contract with their pupils or their 
pupils' parents, or by the sanction of the communities among whom 
they taught, or by the tacit consent of the Church, or by all these col- 
lectively. We shall have occasion to return to the other learned 
authorities whom the Doctor here quotes for his opinion. 

It is but fair to note, however, that the Doctor does not lay any 
great stress on this general argument: he may not even look upon it 
as an argument in the strict sense; but certainly we must consider it 
as a step, however unimportant, towards establishing his main point, 
as we see no other reason for giving it such prominence in his treatise, 
and precisely in this part. ' 

2. "Y\\& second o\: main argument (p. 11-12) is to be found under the 
heading: The Right of the State to Educate. By the state the Doctor 
here understands " not the people but the social authority, " whether 
vested " in one person, or in an assembly." This authority, he says, 
is essentially " one and the same and always and everywhere has the same 
rights and attributes" (Italics ours). Here we would warn the reader that 
these words are misleading. In the merely natural order and in the ab- 
stract this might be granted; but in \.h.& positive and concrete order, the 
power of civil authority may be modified in diverse ways by constitu- 
tional concessions and restrictions; and, above all, in the supernatural 
order the power of the state may vary indefinitely according to the 
relation in which it stands to the supernatural authority. In the concrete, 
therefore, the extent of civil power may be very different according as 
it is vested in a Charlemagne, a Sixtus V., a Garcia Moreno, a Queen 
Victoria, or a President Harrison. Had Dr. Bouquillon borne this 
diversity in mind, he would have come to a more satisfactory solution 
of the tangled school question. 

Here the Doctor vindicates for the state, not " a vague and 
general^' right as "granted to every legitimate association," but a 
^^ special and proper right, of teaching human knowledge " or of educat- 
ing as expressed in tbe heading and elsewhere. This right of teach- 

1 We have been confirmed in this opinion by reading ihe work of Mons. Sauve, whom 
Bouquillon follows as his master. This author gives great prominence to tins argu- 
ment to vindicate the right of educating not only to the state, but chiefly to the Church. 



l6 TJic State Last. 

ing on the part of the state is described as that of " establishing; 
schools, appointing teachers, prescribing methods and programmes of 
study. . . .in the same way as it [the state] goTcrjis dind judges (Italics 
ours), viz, through delegates fitted for such functions." Some of the 
rights here ascribed are in a certain sense unquestioned and unques- 
tionable; as, for instance, in certain cases, the right of establishing, 
schools, appointing teachers, and, with certain restrictions^ prescribing 
methods and programmes of study /c;r siuh schools ; not, however, in 
the same manner as the right of governing and judging, but as a sec- 
ondary and accidental function as the Doctor elsewhere concedes. 
But such rights cannot be categorically asserted as they are by Dr. 
Bouquillon. We give the Doctor's argument in full (p. 12), italicizing 
those passages to which we would draw special attention. 

These considerations being premised to obviate all equivocation, we affirm unhesi- 
tatingly, and in accord, as we think, with the principles of sound theology and philos- 
ophy, and with the testimony of the tradition of the Church, that it must be admitted,, 
as the larger number of theologians do admit, that the State has the right to educate. 
The following reason, drawn from the very nature of things and, in our judgment, thor- 
oughly apodictical will suffice. Civil authority has the right to use all legitimate tempo- 
ral means it judges necessary for the attainment of the temporal common welfare, which- 
is the end of civil society Now amottg the most necessary means for the attainment of 
the temporal welfare of the commonwealth is the diffusion of human knowledge. 
Therefore, civil authority has the right to use the means necessary for the diffusion of 
such knowledge, that is to say, to teach it, or rather to have it taught by capable agents. 
We believe the major proposition of this argument cannot be denied, especially if it be- 
kept in mind that we are speaking of temporal means that enter into the sphere of action 
of the state, and oi legithnate means that trench on and wound no other right. With 
this double reservation the right to an end evidently implies the right to the means. 
Neither can the minor proposition of the argument be reasonably denied. You have 
but to look around you, you have but to consult history to be convinced that from the 
moral, social, political as well as material point of view, science, possessed in different 
degrees according to different conditions, is one of the primordial elements of prosper- 
ity in any country. A nation needs citizens able to take interest in the commonwealth^ 
workmen that are intelligent, surveyors that are skilful, physicians that are experienced, 
jurists that are learned. An ignorant people is a people inferior in agriculture, indus- 
try, arts, war. If you would have a people instructed, you must look to its, instruction, 
and, if need be, establish and direct it. We look upon this conclusion as impregnable. 

This argument, the conclusion of which its author looks upon as- 
" impregnable," has very little, if any weight. For, in the first place, 
Improves too nmch;theve is hardly a tenet advocated by socialists or 
modern social reformers generally but could be equally proved from 



Dr. Bouquillon s Arguments. 17" 

this argument. " Civil authority has a right to use all legitimate tem- 
poral means for the attainment of the temporal common welfare. '^ 
Now, " among the most necessary means for the attainment of the tem- 
poral welfare of the commonwealth" are the judicious administration; 
of temporal goods, the wise regulation and distribution of all industrial 
products, the proper control of the means of communication, the cul- 
tivation and utilization of the soil to its utmost degree of productive- 
ness, the choice by each citizen of the most suitable calling or profes- 
sion, the choice of good and congenial wives and husbands. 
Therefore civil authority has the right to administrate all private 
property, to regulate and distribute all productions, to control all the 
means of communication, to cultivate the soil and work all the mines 
of the country, to choose a vocation or employment for each of its 
citizens, and to assign to each individual a congenial partner for life. 
With such an argument you may prove anything, therefore it 
proves nothing. Hence there must be a flaw in it. Where is the 
fallacy? 

The major might pass if we are to understand by " legitimate tem- 
poral means" what is really for the common good, within the proper scope 
of civil authority; and what does not trench on the inalienable rights of 
the individual, the family and the Church. 

The minor omits "legitimate" and substitutes "among the'most 
necessary." Now, some "diffusion of knowledge," hy some means, 2.x\di 
to some extent, is a "necessary means " for the common good; but not 
the diffusion of all kinds olf knowledge, or any certain kind of knowl- 
edge conveyed by certain special means (say, a certain programme,^ 
taught according to a certain method, in a public school). This lat- 
ter kind of knowledge — communicated by the state through its pub- 
lic schools — is not " necessary; " neither is it a " legitimate means " if 
obtained by the violation of personal or parental rights. Therefore the 
state may not use it as a means unless in certain cases, when it is for the- 
common good, and when it is within the scope of the state, and does, 
not infringe on higher and more sacred rights. Thus, for instance,, 
the state may establish schools for its special purposes, such as mili- 
tary and naval academies, common schools where such are needed andi 
not otherwise provided for; industrial schools for the children of the 
criminal and helpless classes, who are not otherwise cared for; or schools 
generally, where necessary or useful, provided it conforms to the just 



1 8 TJie State Last. 

wishes of parents and of the Church '—but not a system of public schools 
to be regarded as the only acknowledged means or standard of educa- 
tion to which all have to submit or conform; such a means of diffus- 
ing knowledge would be 'illegitimate. The argument, therefore proves 
nothing and we are just where we started. 

The learned author will, moreover, permit us to draw his attention 
to the technical looseness of this syllogism. In the major we have as 
middle term : " all the means it [the state] judges necessary" ;\w the mi- 
nor we have : " among tlie most necessary ?)ieans ; " in the conclusion the 
writer jumps to " t/ie necessary means [for this means i. e. ] for the dif- 
fusion of such knowledge." In a man of less gravity than the learned 
Doctor, this would sound very much like quibbling. The author him- 
self shows the weakness of his " impregnable conclusion " when he 
descends to the followuig remark (p. 12-13). 

The civil power does necessarily teach in one way or another, as for instance, 
when it exercises legislative and judiciary powers ; for a law is an enlightenment, a teach- 
ino- for the mind as well as a direction for the will ; the sentence of a tribunal is likewise 
■an educational agency; and therefore the state as legislator and judge has in virtue of 
this double capacity the right of imparting education. ^ 

This is education in a rather metaphorical sense, the right to which 
no one will deny the state. 

To his "impregnable conclusion" that the state has the right to ed- 
ucate Dr. Bouquillon subsequently appeals to prove the so-called 
mission of the state to educate, and its authority over education (pp. 
19, 23). This is about the only serious attempt at philosophical ar- 
gumentation, in the pamphlet ; and with this argument stands or falls 
the Doctor's opinion, as far as he would have it based on reason. 
We may, therefore, take leave of it and proceed to the examination 
of— 

III. Dr. Bouquillon's Authorities. 
The author " professes to walk in the footsteps of the great theo- 

' Cf Respective Rights and Duties, &c. p. 29, sq.: Rights of our Little Ones, ques- 
tions 49, 50, 56. 

2 Here the Doctor allowed himself again to be misled by his admiration for Sauve: 
" C'est ce que fait I'Etat en exergant la puissance ou legislative ou judiciare, pluisque 
toule Iciest une lumiere, un enseignement pour I'esprit et en mSme temps qu' une direc- 
tion pour la volonte, et que toute sentence est aussi une sorte d'enseignement. Legis- 
lateur et juge, I'Etat ou le souverain est, en cette double qualite, investi d'un certain 
droit d'enseigner : Lex^ dit saint Basile, et doctrix et magistral Opus. cit. p. 254. 



Dr. Boiiquillun's Authorities. 19 

logians, especially of St. Thomas. He has, he says, " been guided by 
the light of the encyclicals of Leo XIII." Now, it is true, he quotes 
St. Thomas and the encyclicals of Leo XIII. a few times, but not a 
single time bearing upon the main issue that the state has a 7-ight 
proper ajid special to educate Z.S it has the right to judge and govern 
by its representatives, but only on secondary issues, which we all 
admit, or in cases in which they are manifestly against his teach- 
ing (as on p. 10, and p. 23), as we shall have occasion to notice here- 
after. 

Now, who are the great theologians in whose footsteps he 
professes to walk ? He permits us to review them in his introduc- 
tion (p. 5-6). 

As to principles, we acknowledge that they are to be found best exposed in the more 
recent publicisis, rather than in the older writers who lived before the modern era of the 
separation ol Church and State. We quote in prejerence (Italics ours) Taparelli, Sag- 
gio teoretico di Diritto naturale, diss. 7, and Esanie critlco degli otdini representativi, 
torn. I, p. 314; Card. Zigliara, Phil, nior., p. il, lib. ir, c. I, a. 5 ; Costa-Rosseiti, Inst. 
Eth. ti jur. not. thes. 175, 176; TIammerstein, De Ecct. ct Statu, p. 146, 158, 181; 
Sauve, Questions religieuses et sociales, c. 10 ; Cavngnis, Inst. Jur. publ. et Eccl. lib. iv, 
c. I. Mentio7i must also be made (Italics ours) of Coppola, Sul Diritto delta CJiiesa in 
ordine at publico Insegnamento ; Riess, Der moderne Staat und die Christliche Schule ; 
Jansen, De Facultate Docendl ; Conway, The respective rights and duties of family, state 
and church in regard to education ; Kobiano, De Jure Ecclesice in Universitates Studi- 
orum ; and finally the anonymous work of two French priests, EEcole neutre en face de 
la Theo logic. 

To these are added the various collections of the decrees and can- 
ons of the Church, and the schema de ecclesia prepared for the Vatican 
Council, but not discussed, a large array of church historians, and, in 
short, the entire psedagogical literature as described in Folybiblion 
(1873-74) and elsewhere. There is no lack of authorities, therefore 
and of course the simple reader, who has not read all the books re- 
viewed in Folybiblion, is left to believe that all those authorities con- 
verge in the opinion propounded by the learned Doctor ; if he hap- 
pens to have overlooked, as he is very likely to do, tlie incidental 
remark in the preface : that " he [Dr. Bouquillon] could not omit, 
without sacrificing completeness, certain delicate points of detail on 
which Catholics are not in agreement." 

Now, as the reader must have remarked, the Doctor divides his 
authorities into two classes ; one whom he " quotes in preference,'' 
and another of whom only " mention must be made.'' He evidently lays 



20 The Slate Last. 

more stress on the former, either because they have the greater 
weight, or because he thinks they agree with him in his views on state 
education. For one or both of these reasons he does not make a sin- 
gle reference in his work to any of the second category of au- 
thorities ; although he does not rigorously exclude others who are not 
mentioned on the first list. 

It seems to us, therefore, that if we can show that the authorities 
mentioned in the first class are against, or certainly not for, Dr. 
Bouquillon in his main point — i. e., the special and proper right of 
the state to educate — his position as that of one man against so 
many or against all the great authorities, who have written on the 
subject, becomes very questionable, nay, untenable. 

a. In regard to these authors, and to Catholic authors generally, it 
may be remarked ; firstly, that they do not deny the state the right 
to establish schools for its own special purposes ; nor in any other 
case in which schools are necessary or expedient for the common good, 
and not otherwise provided for ; nor the right of procuring an edu- 
cation for abandoned or destitute or criminal children and youths, 
if not otherwise cared for ; nor do they even deny the state the right 
to establish and support a system of public schools, particularly ele- 
mentary schools, for children indiscriminately, provided the rights and 
just demands of parents and of the Church are respected and com- 
plied with ; much less do they deny this right to the state in the case 
in which there is an understanding between Church and state, 
whether by agreement or constitutional and organic union. 

b. While granting to the state the right and duty of protecting, 
fostering, and promoting education, they deny the proper and special 
right of the state to educate in the strict sense of the word, unless in 
utter default of parents (and next in kin), making this right in the 
natural order a strictly parental right. 

c. While granting that the* state in union with the Church can 
enforce compulsory education they persistently deny this right to the 
state as such — most particularly to the agnostic, or purely secular, 
state. 

d. Over private schools, i.e., those that are not state schools, they 
allow no further state supervision than that exercised over any other 
place where a large number of people are wont to assemble for social 
or mercantile purposes; ^hWt th.& family edtication as such is subject 



Dr. Boiiquillon' s Authorities. 2i 

to no state control more than any other department of domestic life. 
We shall examine Dr. Bouquillon's authorities one by one. 

I. Taparelli^ ' one of the first authorities on natural law, lays, indeed, 
great stress on the rights and duties of the state in regard to educa- 
tion, insists that the state should offer all legitimate advantages for 
popular, scientific and technical education, and emphasizes also what 
he calls civil education, or education in the social or civic duties. 
But this latter education seems to consist practically, or chiefly, in 
the equitable discharge of the ordinary functions of civil government 
not in any scholastic training (cf. Saggio nn. 909-987). 

Nowhere do we find a passage in this author indicating, or capable 
of being interpreted as justifying, the right t)f the state to interfere in 
private education, or in domestic affairs generally, except in cases of 
flagrant abuse or neglect, endangering the social order. He advocates 
the fullest freedom from state interference for all schools, also for 
public schools that are not strictly government or state schools. He 
everywhere represents education as the special, proper and exclusive 
right and duty of parents. He sums up the influence of civil author- 
ity on education in the following words .(n. 1570). 

" From the preceding considerations what should be the influence 
of civil society [the state] on private education? As private educa- 
tion belongs altogether to the department of domestic authority and 
is one of the motives of the perpetuity of marriage, if civil and 
political authority had the right to interfere in private education, it 
could be only to direct it to the common good, or to repress disorders. 
The first cause [the direction to the common good] cannot occur 
because all education conducted on the principles of morality tends 
of itself to the common good, to order. Order itself demands that the 
right of parents in this matter be safeguarded, since this right is inal- 
ienable, being at the same time a right and a duty; the exercise of 
this right could not be more safely confided than to the tenderness 
of parents. This exercise is also facilitated by the community of life 
and by the total natural dependence of the child [on parental aid]. 
Civil power cannot therefore in normal circumstances arrogate to itself 
the right to direct private educatiofi. The state, however, may open to 

' Saggio teoretico di diritto raturale ; Esame critico degli ordini representativi. Not 
having the original Itahan at hand we quote from the French edition of the Saggio, 
published under the supervision of the author in Paris and Tournai 1857 in 4 Volumes. 



22 The State Last. 

youth the pure fountains of the true and the good. It may, while 
offering guarantees to parents [for the preservation of faith and mor- 
als] come to tiieir aid in the work of ^Ciwcdiixow^ provided only it use no 
force in the matter. In this affair the state may not arrogate right., but 
offer assistance; this is a laudable endeavor in a progressive society." 

Taparelli vindicates this same right to the next in kin in default of 
parents. " In default of parents the duty of education devolves 
upon the next in kin; they shall have to that effect all the rights nec- 
essary" (n. 1575). Again (lib. viii. c. 4. prop. 3) he says: "A good 
government should not interfere in the private affairs of its citizens 
except to correct disorders that have become notorious by infamy or by 
legal denunciation [reclamation]. " Civil authority should so dis- 
tribute Its public functions as not to meddle in the domestic and private 
affairs of its subjects." (Ibid. prop. 4). 

(Vol. iv. p. 344-345. Note 140). Taparelli puts the query: Wheth- 
er the parents are free to entrust the education and instruction of their 
children to whomsoever they please? He answers: "There is no 
doubt as far diS private and domestic instruction is concerned, if he in 
whom they place this trust Jias the qualities required. However 
public authority cannot interfere unless there is question of a notori- 
ously immoral or suspected person.'' 

He then puts the same question in regard to public instruction as 
distinguished from what he calls social instruction. The former is 
that given to the children of several families united; the latter that 
which is given in the name of the state, in state schools. In the 
former case which corresponds to our parochial schools and all others 
that are not state schools, he says, " civil authority, acquires in conse- 
quence of this material publicity [publicite materielle] the right of 
supervision since the action of teaching is no longer confined within 
the precincts of the family, under domestic authority. But society 
does not contract any obligation to guarantee the doctrines [of such 
schools] by its authority as it does in the case of social [state] in- 
struction. Therefore it has not the right, arising from such obliga- 
tion, to prepare a formula [programme] for the instruction to be 
given by the teachers [of such schools]. The state will, therefore, 
be in the same condition in regard to such teachers as we have 
observed in our answer to the first query [in regard to strictly private 
schools]." " A christian state [societe croyante] derives from the 



Dr. Bouquillon s Authorities. 23 

infallibility in which it believes the right to prohibit error. But a non- 
Christian state [societe incredule] cannot show any title to direct the 
moral teaching [of such schools], since the latter depends on con- 
science, to which the state has guaranteed liberty. The material pub- 
licity of such schools gives no further right to the state over them than that 
which it has over every other numerous gatherings in which the diversity 
of families united produces a similar material publicity. Public author- 
ity, therefore, in such cases has the right to provide for peace and 
sanitary conditions, and respect for law as in the case of a pleasure 
party or an insurance company. But as in these latter cases it can- 
not exclude anyone because he is unable to dafice, or has not ad?ninistra- 
tive abilities, neither can it in the case of private schools attempt to 
exclude teachers or pupils on account of their incapacity." 

Again, (Ibid. p. 347) he says: " A state which does not present any 
reasonable title to infallibility cannot control the teachings, nor reject 
the teachers, nor, co?isequently, exclude from the public employments the pu- 
pils of free [that is, public, but not state] schools. If the state should 
pretend in this matter to bind men^s consciences by its ordinances, it 
would commit the gravest outrage against that liberty which it has 
guaranteed." 

(Ibid. p. 348). Taparelli establishes and proves the following propo- 
sitions: I. " The education of youth is strictly (proprement) of parental 
or domestic right. 2. [Against Gioberti] 'E,cc\tii\2iSt\cscdin,eve?iof them- 
selves alone \\. e., without aid from seculars] sufficiently assist parents in 
the education of their children; and the secular influence of civil wisdom, 
as Gioberti calls it, may in the matter of education prove eminently 
dangerous." In connection with the second proposition he says: 

" This proposition seems to us to be evident from what has been 
said in the text (n. 1560), and it is impossible to see how the element- 
ary education of their children can be wrested from the hands of 
parents without infringing on the rights of nature. Even Gioberti when 
he advocates public education, certainly does Jiotwish to enforce coT?tpul- 
sion, but only to improve the public institutions in such a way that par- 
ents of themselves might have recourse to them for the education of 
their children. If it were permitted to civil authority thus to restrict 
parental rights, how could it be forbidden to the most perfect of socie- 
ties [the Church] whose aim is spiritual, whose teaching is infallible, 
whose legislation is holy and universal in its extent violently to force 



24 The State Last. 

from infidel parents their children to bring them regenerated into the 
harbor of salvation? The C/iu?rh, hoivever, reproves the hnprudent zeal 
of those who would prevent infidel pare7its from educating their own 
children. How, then, could we concede to civil authority, for a 
temporal advantage that power which is denied the religious 
society [the Church] for man's spiritual and eternal weal." 

When we compare this teaching with that of the defenders of state 
education we cannot but marvel that Dr. Bouquillon could put the 
name of Taperelli at the head of his favorite authorities. We may 
add here that the passage quoted from Taparelli by Dr. Bouquillon 
(p. 17) of itself completely undoes the Litter's position. 

"■ Let us consider the child," says Taparelli, " at the moment when his 
reason puts forth its first complete and formal act. Evidently at that 
moment the child does not know all truth; it scarcely has any clear 
ideas; for a long while it will need masters to impart to it by their 
authority the simplest and most necessary notions. As soon as these 
primal ideas are proposed to it, it sees their fitness, at least, vaguely 
and confusedly; and if they were not proposed to it, it would remain 
in ignorance of them for a long time. The intention of nature is 
that they be proposed to it, for nature has formed intellect for the 
knowledge of the truth, and society to facilitate and develop such 
knowledge. And so the parent has the obligation of instructing and the 
child the obligation of attending to the instruction, until the day when the rea- 
son of theyouth is matured (Italics ours) and he can discover for himself 
the principles of conduct, the laws of his moral activity. Then only, 
when the reason of the child is nearly as well developed as that of the 
father, the child being equally capable of knowing the truth by him- 
self, is he bound to give to his own reason that obedience which for- 
merly he yielded to the reason of the parent."' (Ibid. n. 1565-56). 

If the parent has the obligation and, consequently, the right of in- 
structing the child " until the day when the reason of youth is ma- 
tured " and " the child as nearly as well developed as the father " what 
room is there left for state education?^ 

2. Next in order of citation is Cardinal Zigliara, * an author of the 

^ Translation by Dr. Bouquillon. 

* These questions are treated more extensively in Taparelli's Esavte Criiico (Part 
I. c. 7). 

^ Sum. Phil. Vol. iii. pars. ii. lib. ii. c. i. a 5. 



Dr. Boiiquillon s Authorities. 25 

■greatest weight in philosophical matters. He treats the question of 
education in his ethics with that fulness and conciseness that we 
might expect in a text-book of the dimensions of his Smnma philosophi- 
ca. Now," what is Zigliara's teaching? 

He sternly rejects state monopoly of education, as advocated by Vic- 
tor Cousin and other liberals whom he characterizes as \h& public des- 
troyers of parental authority (public! oppressores patriae potestatis). 

He grants to the state, what no one denies, the right and also 
the duty of procuring suitable means of education (procurandi media 
aptiora ad educationem), and of watching over education, both intel- 
lectual and moral, so as to keep it within the bounds of truth and mor- 
ality (this, of course, only in as far as truth and morality comes under 
■the external moral order). 

He establishes the following thesis: Ci%nl authority has no right to 
■obtrude its oum teachers, and its own schools on parents for the intellectual 
and moral education of their children. ' 

He does not treat exprofcsso the question of compulsory education; 
tout he sufficiently expresses his disapproval of compulsion particulary 
by an irreligious, indifferent, or agnostic state. In solving a difficulty 
fetched from the supposed right of the state to impose obligatory in- 
struction, he says: " I do not wish to detract in aught from the rights 
•of the state; but state rights are not divine rights ; they are limited rights 
which presuppose other rights no less, nay, even move sacred than 
state rights — rights which the state is bound not to destroy, but to 
protect. The rights of the state extend just as far as the manifest 
exigency of the good of the commonwealth. Now, is cojnpulsory in- 
struction really for the common good? Speaking in the abstract : cer- 
tainly. But considermg the matter /// the concrete : it is very doubtful 
(res valde dubia est) — not, indeed, if we consider instruction in itself; 
but, if we attend to the numberless means by which minds are cor- 
rupted under the pretext of instruction, as sad experience daily 
teaches. ^wX. granted (concedamus) the state has the right to enjoin 
compulsory instruction; what follows thence? Nothing else, in sooth, 
than this — that parents might be compelled by law to instruct their 
own children. But the state which under the pretence of obligatory 
instruction imposes its own instruction, a so-called secular (laicam) 

' Status civilis nullum jus hnbet imponendi suos magistros, suasque scholas patribus 
fainilia^^ quoad filioram educationem turn intellectualeni turn moraleni. 



26 The State Last. 

instruction, and, what is still worse, a godless (atheam) instruction,. 
violates the rights of parents. 

In this passage Zigliara only grants for argunienf s sake the law- 
fulness of compulsory instruction (not education strictly so-called, 
not school attendance) because he does not wish to enter upon the 
question, whether from prudential reasons, or because he thinks this 
question is outside the scope of his elementary work. But on what 
side of the question his sympathy is, the unbiased reader cannot fail 
to see. And yet, strange to say, the learned Cardinal is cited as a 
defender of the public school and even of compulsory education.* 

3. Nothing surprised us more than to see Costa-Rosseiti"- cited for 
Dr. Bouquillon's doctrine. Of all the authors we had the pleasure 
of consultmgnone is more explicit, none more uncompromising in his- 
defence of the rights of the family than Father Costa-Rossetti. Yet 
he does not neglect to give to Caesar what is Csesar's. 

He establishes the thesis (p. 733): "Civil authority may indeed es- 
tablish schools and direct schools thus established; but it cannot pro- 
hibit the citizens themselves also from erecting public schools and 
controlling and directing schools thus erected; yet it cannot grant 
absolute liberty of instruction." ' Rossetti, therefore, grants the state 
the right to found schools without any restriction except, of course,, 
the common good; but he denies the right of monopoly to the state. 
He maintains that the state cannot grant absolute liberty of instruction- 
because it is the duty of the state to prevent or suppress irreligious, 
impious and immoral schools. 

So much for Csesar; but, now for ih& parents. His thesis (pp. 736) 
is: " In virtue of the natural law parents cannot, in justice, be directly 
{perse) compelled to send their children to an elementary school;. 

' For the credit of Dr. Bouquillon, however, it i.s just to remark that he only says : 
" Nor does Cardinal Zigh'ara dare deny that power [of compulsory instruction] to the 
state" (p. 27). We must acknowledge that the Doctor, though, in our opinion, he has- 
unconsciously misconceived and misinterpreted those great authors, treais ihem with a 
modesty and consideration characteristic of a true scholar. In this regard he contrasts 
favorably with the author of an article in the Independent of .June 4, 1891, who treats 
the same arguments and authorities from a journalistic standpoint. 

^ Philosophia Moralis (Ed. 11.). Innsbruck 18J56, Pars. IV. c. 2. pp. 733-47. 

^ Auctoritas civilis scholas quidem fundare et a se fundatas dingere postest ; sed per 
se pvohibere nequit, ne cives ipsi scholas etiam publicas erigant ; a se ipsis erectas- or- 
dinent et dirigant, quin tamen absolutarn docendi libertatem concedere possit. 



Dr. Boiiquilloii s Authorities. 27 

they may, however, be compelled indirectly [per accidens) in certain 
individual cases." ' In a foot-note he remarks in explanation of this 
thesis: 

" In the thesis we suppose that the schools in question are not bad, 
not hurtful to religion and morality; that the teachers of Catholic 
children are not infidels or Protestants or Jews; that in the schools 
neither useless matters are taught, nor such subjects as would tend 
to make the lower classes of society dissatisfied with their social 
condition; that compulsory attendance at school does not extend 
over many years, so that the parents are not too long deprived 
of the assistance of their children." ^ 

We abstain from giving the clear and cogent argumentation with 
which Costa-Rossetti proves the first part of his thesis, since there is 
question here of his authority, not of his arguments, and his excellent 
work is within the reach of most of those interested in this contro- 
versy; but we shall give a few extracts from the corollaries which he 
appends to this thesis (pp. 744, sq.). 

" From these considerations follows: — 

(i). " That no sufficient title can be found to establish the right of 
governments to educate children /// as much as they are citizens, or to 
have them instructed in public schools, in order to make them good 
citizens; although rulers should use other means — e. g., good govern- 
ment, premiums and distinctions, vigilance for the maintenance of 
public morality — to promote civic virtues and patriotism (i. e., love of 
their own native commonwealth). 

(2). "That it cannot be shown that the right of education and in- 
struction emanates &qn3.\\y from parental and civic power j nor that the 
power has been delegated by the people to the subject invested with 
civil authority to teach and to compel attendance at school." 

(3). " That compulsory education has been not unjustly regarded by 
some ^% intellectual socialism and commimism, from which material com- 

* Spectata lege naturse parentes ab auctoritate civili per se juste cogi non possunt, ut 
liberos in scholam elementarem miltant ; id tamen fieri potest per accidens in casibus 
parti cularibus. 

2 Costa-Rossetli denies the right of the state in the present condition of society to 
compel school attendance, also in the case in which children are brought up illiterate^ 
provided their physical and moral education is not notably neglected, so as to make 
them utterly miserable. Utrum aliquando tempora futura sint, quibus homines idea 
solum miseri evadant, quod nesciant legere et scribere, posteri nostri dijudicent (p 739)- 



28 The State Last. 

munism logically follows. For, if civil authority can arbitrarily deal 
with the most important right of education and of the intellectual 
culture of its citizens, it may a fortiori dispose at pleasure of the right 
of property and of the material prosperity of its citizens, since ma- 
terial goods are of a lower order. Hence it is not to be wondered at 
that the socialists of our day are among the most zealous defenders 
of compulsory education — in order that the minds of men may be pre- 
disposed for the socialistic state." 

(4). " Ylence co??ipulsory education has been justly compared with that 
guardianship (known in German by the name of curatet) under which 
certain extravagant parents, who recklessly and viciously squander 
their property, are, at the request of their relations, placed by the 
state — with this difference however: that by compulsory education 
all are ruade wards of the state in regard to spiritual goods ; and that with- 
out any crime being proved agamst them." 

(5). " That, if the children are to be forced from their parents to be 
educated they should also be taken from them to be nursed; for, if the mind 
is to be trained by the state, why not the body as well ? The bodily 
strength and health of its citizens are of great importance for the 
commonwealth — that the state may have good soldiers, farmers, work- 
men, &c." 

In explaning the second part of his thesis, Costa-Rossetti makes 
this admission seemingl}^ in favor of compulsion: — '■'■ If it is proved th.dX 
children are so treated by their parents that they must necessarily become 
miserable, unless they are relieved from parental control, civil authority, in 
virtue of its office of protecting the rights of its citizens, can and 
must make provision for their education, and, according to circum- 
stances, must either remove them from their parents or force the lat- 
ter to send them to a school. But this can happen only in certain partic- 
ular cases and accidentally. ' 

Does this admission justif)'' a compulsory latv 2 No; it only vindi- 
cates for the state the right, which no one denies, of preventing or 
remedying flagrant abuses of parental authority and protecting so- 

' Si demonstratur, liberos a parentibus ita tractari, ut miseri fieri debeant, nisi a 
potestate parentum eximantur, auctoriias civilis vi muneris" tutelae jurium potest et de- 
bet illos educandos curare et, prout adjuncta exigunt, aut liberos parentibus eripere, 
aut hos cogere, ut illos in scholam mittant. Atqui id tantum in particularibus casibus 
occurrit et nonnisi per accidens. 



Dr. Bouquillon s Authorities. 29 

ciety from manifestly threatening evils in particular cases. These 
evils, however, can be remedied without inflicting on society the much 
greater hardship of universal compulsion. This is the teaching of 
Costa-Rossetti. We leave it to the reader to judge whether or not 
he can be cited as an advocate of state education, or compulsory 
schooling. 

4. Fourth on the list of authorities stands the name of Hammerstein 
— a name of no small weight on this subject. A profound jurist and 
canonist, in his younger days the disciple and admirer of men like 
Haller, Ahrens, Stahl and Bluntschli, von Hammerstein has been 
for more than twenty years as a publicist identified with this special 
question. His valuable writings on this problem are; scattered 
through the volumes of the Stirnmen aus Maria-LaacJi. But in two 
separate works the Schulfrage ' and Kirche und Sfaat " (the latter pub- 
lished also in Latin), he has given us a summary of his principles and 
the arguments upon which they rest. We are indebted to Rev. Father 
Holaind for an extended extract in excellent English translation from 
the second work in his prompt and able reply to Dr. Bouquillon. ^ We 
shall give the salient passages from Father Holaind's translation and 
supplement it by an extract from the Schulfrage : 

" The parents have the obligation of education and all the rights of edu- 
cation before the Church and the state, and in this sense, that even be- 
fore the existence of any state or Church the parents could and 
ought to educate and instruct their children, and, if need be, send 
them to school. Let us suppose that neither is yet existing. Should 
the children then born live without education until the state 
should arise, or until a Church should be founded ? Or could 
any one else be designated that should educate and instruct the 
children ? " 

" The parents, therefore, have the right of excluding the interference 
of all others who might wish to educate their children, or in some way 
to hinder them in the performance of their duty, by forcing on them 
methods which to the parents seem inconsistent with the proper kind 
of education : without this privilege, their right would be a mockery. 
However, one condition is to be observed : parents have the right to 

' Freiburg, Herder (II. Ed.) 1877. 2 Freiburg, Herder 1883 (Latin 1884). 

5 The Parent first : an Answer to Dr. Bouquillon's Query, &c., Benziger Bros., New 
York. 



30 The State Last. 

exclude others, unless such others can prove that they also have some 
right over the education of the children." 

" In our times the state is that agency which attempts to interfere 
in the education of the children by controlling the schools. Let us 
examine with what right it does this. We cannot deny that the state 
or commonwealth has some rights in regard to the schools and the edu- 
cation of children. It is the state's duty to s^ipply ivhat is wantijig on 
the part of the family. Hence, in the first place, it can offer means to 
parents whereby they may better and more easily provide for their 
children's education. This the state do&shy /uunding and efidowittg 
schools according to the needs and wishes of the parents. But with regard 
to endoKjmcuts, or any other form of assistance, the state has no 7-ight 
to give them, unless they contribute to the public good, to which they 
certainly do not contribute if sufficient provision has already been 
made for the schools in other ways, as, for instance, through the 
medium of religious orders." 

" In the second place, the state may stpplement the family in educat- 
ing the children, if need be, compelling negligent parents to fulfil their 
obligations in this regard." 

" In the third place, the state may so far supplement the family as 
to take upon itself the education, in the case of orphans, for instance or 
if, for any reasons, the parents themselves cannot educate their chil- 
dren. This, however, supposes that those also are unable to supply 
the education who, next to the parents, and in preference to the state, 
have the right and duty to fill the place of parents, namely, relatives, 
municipal organizations, or the Chicrch (where the Church does exist), " 

" In the fourth place, the question suggests itself whether, beyond 
the duty of supplementing the family, the state has a direct right, 
jointly with the family, of educating the children, in so far as to have 
the right to compel parents to send their children to certain appointed 
schools — those, for instance, under state control; or in so far as to 
have the exclusive right to establish schools; or, in a word, to educate 
and to teach; or finally, in so far as to have the right to insist upon a 
certain method of education, a certain kind of school, or a certain anwu7it 
of matter, which all are bound to learn, — matter, I mean, in excess of 
what is absolutely necessary; for to omit this would, of course, be 
sheer negligence." 

Von Hammerstein answers these queries in the negative, defends his 



Dr. Bouquillon s Authorities. 3 1 

position against the prevailing theories of state education as advo- 
cated by Trendelenburg, Stahl, Cousin and Jiirgen Bona Meyer, and 
thus concludes. 

" Those repeated and strange attempts to prove that the state 
owns, jointly with the parents, or even above the parents, the right 
to educate, and to compel the attendance of children, show clearly 
that the right cannot be made good, and therefore has no existence. 
The conclusion is that the parents hold the right of training and instruct- 
ing their children as tJiey judge fit and through masters of their own selection, 
provided that they do not overstep the bou7idaries of reason : should they dis- 
regard the behests of reason, then, indeed, the state, as the civil su- 
perior, may provide for the education of the children." (De ecclesia 
et statu, p. 181 sq.). 

In the special work entitled the Schulfrage (p. 6-7) Father von 
Hammerstein establishes the following thesis which forms the gist of 
his argument: ' 

"If the state, contrary to the wishes of paretits, and of the Church, 
takes into its own hands the education of youth, it commits a three- 
fold crying violation of right." 

I. " A violation of the rights of parents; for to them, and not to the 
state, God has confided the children to be educated; of them, and 
not of the state, God will once demand an account for the souls of the 
children." 

II. " A violation of that positive right established by Christ; for the 
Church, and not the state, has received from Christ the power to edu- 
cate children and adults to Christian life." 

III. " A violation of the historic rights of the Church; for before any 
of the modern states of Europe existed the Church was in the just pos- 
session of the right of education, of the elementary schools and of count- 
less other institutions of learning established by itself; and inter- 
national treaties and agreements have acknowledged and secured to 
her this right." 

This entire work of von Hammerstein (128 octavo pages) consists of 
the proof and confirmation of these three propositions from reason, 
from revelation, from positive law, and historic facts and statistics. 
Any one who is even superficially acquainted with either of these 
works cannot but be surprised that Father von Hammerstein could 
ever have been cited in defence of state education. 



32 The State Last. 

5. We now come to an authority which Dr. Bouquillon manifestljr 
prizes very highly — Mons. Cavagnis, professor of Canon Law in the' 
papal seminary in Rome. Dr. Bouquillon certainly does not overrate 
this excellent canonist, and we are sincerely grateful to him for 
making us acquainted with this distinguished author. On examina- 
tion, however, we do not find that Cavagnis differs in his doctrine oit- 
the school question from von Hammerstein, Taparelli, Costa-Rossetti- 
and Catholic writers generally. In his Italian work: Nozioni di diritto' 
&'€., published in Rome 1886, he states his doctrine very briefly (p. 
220 sq.). 

He attributes to the Church the supervisio7t over all schools, especially 
over the elementary schools; in which religion cannot be separated from . 
secular instruction (n. 362) ; the right to make religious instruction obliga- 
tory in all schools (n, 363) as part of the course of instruction; the 
right of establishing schools and educational institutions of her own (n. 
364). The pupilsof such ecclesiastical schools cannot be debarredof the civ- 
il advantages attendant on public schools. Either such church schools- 
must be acknowledged by the state, or at least there must be some- 
equitable means (public test) given to such pupils to prove their fit- 
ness for the various civil offices (n. 365). 

In his Latin work (Institutiones juris-&c.) published in Rome 1882- 
in 3 vols, he devotes over 80 pages to the matter of schools. His 
treatment is all that could be desired — thorough, comprehensive and 
exact. One can see, however, in him, as in many other European au- 
thors, who treat this subject, that he is struggling with existing circum- 
stances and trying to reconcile things as best he can; and, therefore, he 
makes all concessions to the civil power that he can consistently with 
the rights of the Church and with the Christian character of education; 
and hence we may easily understand Dr. Bouquillon's veneration for 
him. His sources, like those of all canonists are, of course, positive 
laws, concordats, rescripts, compromises, &:c., that suppose circum- 
stances very different from ours. Our American situation as far as 
the relation between Church and state is concerned, is sui generis, and 
cannot be judged in the light of any text-book of canon law, however 
perfect. Orthodox and excellent as is the teaching of Cavagnis, it is 
inapplicable to our American circumstances. Yet no part of his 
teaching can be interpreted in favor of Dr. Bouquillon's theory. 

According to Cavagnis it is the father's (respectively the mother's) 



Dr. Bouqiiillon s Authorities. 33'. 

Tight and duty (patrisfamilias jus et officium) to instruct his children 
in the true Christian doctrine (Vol. III. p. 14). Schools (p. 15) are 
institutions supplementary to the family. The secular instruction of 
children cannot be separated frotti tlie moral and religious, i.e., from 
Catholic education (pp. 16. sq.). 

This latter proposition he proves very conclusively from reason 
and from the authority of Leo XIII. in his epistle to the Cardinal 
Vicar of Rome June 26, 1878, in which His Holiness aptly compares^ 
the separation of religion from secular instruction to the division of 
the child in the id^vciOMS judgment of Solomon. ^ 

Cavagnis grants that a separation may be made of the religious in- 
struction proper, from the secular as to time and place, and the per- 
son of the teacher (quoad locum, et personam docentis), but insists 
that the secular education should be imbued with the spirit of relig- 
ion (spiritu religioso informatam); and that religion should form a 
part of the programme of instruction. Hence be concludes that the 
teacher who would not speak of God and of the duties towards Hira, 
would impress false ideas on the minds of his pupils (falso spiritu 
imbueret suos discipulos). Natural and non-sectarian (institutionem 
christianam in genere) religion and morality are not sufficient as 
beingya/.f^ and incomplete (p. .24). 

Private schools represent the authority of the parents^ the private 
teacher has no other authority to teach than what he received from parents 
{ftullam aliani auctoritatem habet quam receptam a patribus familias), and 
this holds also of colleges (cum filii in collegio ponuntur); while the 
religious instruction must in all cases be given under the authority 
and supervision of the Church (pp. 25-27). 

Public schools, according to Cavagnis, are those that are under the di- 
rection of civil or municipal authority, which, as long as they are free^ 
retain their parental character to some extent (p. 32). The cojnpulsory 
public school is a violation of parental right, though the state and civil 
authority may coerce and discipline those parents who neglect their 
duty in educating their children (p. ^t,). 

In public schools, which, of course, must comply with the lawful de* 

1 It is here that Cavagnis cites the decree of the sacred Congregation. Aug. 17, 1688, 
referred to by Dr Bouquillon (p. 13) in proof of the early existence of secular schools 
— bnt for a widely different purpose, viz., to prove that religious instruction must go 
hand in hand with secular teaching. 



34 '^Thc State Last. 

mands of the Church (viz., that Catholic schools should be strictly 
Catholic) the teachers of Christian doctrine must be approved by the 
Church (ibid.). The same rule holds for middle and higher schools; 
while clerical seminaries can in no wise be subject to civil authority 
(pp. 38-50). 

The Church has not the exclusive right of establishing and conducting 
schools: " No onetver denied to parents theright to educate their oivn children, 
nor to the civil state the right to establish schools — Patribus familias facul- 
tatem suos docendi et statui civili scholas instituendi nemo unquam 
denegavit" ' (p. 53). 

In regard to freedom of education Cavagnis says: That private in- 
dividuals have the right to open schools, but under the general 
supervision of the state; that is, the state has the right and duty 
(i) to see that, while individuals (or corporations) wish to aid 
the development of human perfection, they do not disturb the juridi- 
cal relations; (2) to punish or repress in case of perturbation (of 
those juridical relations), or of proximate danger of such disorder; 
(3) in default of private individuals or corporations, to take all meas- 
ures suitable for the gradual perfection of society according to its 
concrete circumstances. And he thus concludes: " Therefore the 
state establishes schools when private schools are wanting either 
wholly or in part (and they will always be wanting in part: since it is 
hardly possible, as a rule, that there should be a sufficient number es- 
tablished for the poor by private charity); Moreover, the state 

will take care that in private schools there be no disturbance of the 
juridical order; and, if such should happen, to repress it." ^ (p. 64). 

The result of this concession is, therefore, that the state can estab- 
lish schools in default of private persons or corporations — a default 
which will often occur; and that it can prevent or repress disorder 
(e. g., hazing, theft, public immorality), which we all admit. 

The opinion that the office of educating (munus docendi) belongs to 

' Sauv6 quotes these golden words in caps. The writer in the Independent^ above 
referred to, quotes only tlie second part of the sentence in favor of the state or public 
school, ignoring the context of Cavagnis himself, and of Sauve. Dr. Bouquillon him- 
self has recourse to the same stratngem in Rejoinder^ p. 31. 

2 Ergo scholas instituit status cum deficiunt vel ex toto vel ex parte scholae privator- 
um (et ex parte semper deficient, cum pro pauperibus vix possibile sit adsint universim 
charitate privatorum constitutpe): deinde invigilabit ne in scholis privatorum perlur- 
bentur relationes jutidicse et, si id fiet, reprimet." Cf. Bouquillon, p. 19. 



Dr. Bonqiiillon s Authorities. 35 

the state {ess,^ munus publicum) like that oi Judges (sicut illud judi- 
cura) is manifestly /«/i-^(patetfalsitas) according to Cavagnis ' (ibid.). 

" [The right of teaching] is 'a private ri^htivhich cannot be violated by 
the state, but only moderated or, in extraordinary cases, limited or sus- 
pended when the public weal demands it " (ibid.). 

The state can prescribe certdi\n preventive measures to test the fatness 
of teachers; which means, however, should not be onerous, and are 
not always expedient (p. 65). The private teacher is not a state function- 
ary j nor can he receive his authority to teach from the state, but only the recog- 
nition of his fitness (p. 66). Hence it follows that the Church has at 
least all the rights of private individuals and corporations in regard 
to education; nay, the Church should enjoy greater confidence than 
private persons on the part of the state — abstracting from ecclesias- 
tical immunity, in virtue of which clerics have not to answer before 
a secular tribunal (p 68). 

But the Church has also a special right and title to establish schools 
even in a 7iormal state of society in virtue of her mission to teach the 
religion of Christ (pp. 69-72). She has also the right to open and 
conduct boarding schools (p. 73-74). 

The Church has in our days a still more special right and duty of es- 
tablishing her own schools in- the present abnormal state of society, for 
the preservation of the faith (ibid). 

As regards the civil effects of education the state has the right to 
test the fitness of its own pubhc officials: also the fitness of certain pro- 
fessional men; as physicians, druggists, &c. (p. 78-79). The state 
cannot, however, compel the candidates of such ofifces, or professions, to 
• frequent its own schools. 

Such is in substance the teaching of Cavagnis. Now, from all his 
concessions which are, we believe, the utmost that could be made to 
the state, nothing follows for the main theory of Dr. Bouquillon — 
that the state has the special and proper right to educate as it has to Judge 
and to govern by its functionaries. Nay, Cavagnis expressly teaches the 
contrary — that this right is not inherent in the state. The only point 
in which Cavagnis seems to favor Dr. Bouquillon's theory is in re- 
gard to the testing by the state of the fitness of teachers — the exer- 
cise of which right he himself acknowledges to be often inexpedient 

1 Dr. Bouquillon (p. 12) seems to teach the contrary. Strange that Sauv6, who, for 
the rest follows Cavagnis very closely, should also cling to the opposite theory. 



$6 The State Last. 

and always unnecessary, and, therefore, vexatious in the case of Church 
institutions, in which the state should have full confidence. Besides, 
it must be borne in mind, as we have already remarked, that Cavagnis 
is contending with existing circumstances, not as we are, with in- 
novations on the part of the state. 

6. It was at this stage of our writing that we had the good fortune, 
after much trouble, to get a copy of the work of an author who evi- 
dently enjoys the highest authority with Dr. Bouquillon — we mean 
Monsigiior Sauvd^ who was papal theologian at the Vatican Council, 
and some time Rector of the Catholic University of Angers in 
France. He is a writer of genuine merit — learned, broad-minded, 
and wholly devoted to the interests of the Church and of religion. 
His orthodoxy and loyalty to the Church cannot be questioned. Had 
we been able to possess ourselves of this work sooner it would have 
saved us a great deal of trouble; it would have thrown much light on 
the dark points of Dr. Bouquillon's brochure — his somewhat tortu- 
ous disposition, his method, the many apparent inconsistencies, the 
meaning and import of most of the authorities he quotes; but we had 
the bad luck to find this work last of all, though it is the very 
first work the student of Dr. Bouquillon's pamphlet should read. 

The veneration of Dr. Bouquillon forSauve goes to the utmost lim- 
it of literary propriety. He adopts the same division, the same meth- 
od, uses the same authorities and even translates many passages 
almost ad literain — and sometimes we must confess, without due dis- 
crimination. Sauve has the same fundamental errors, or inaccuracies, 
which we have pointed out in Dr. Bouquillon's teaching — the right of 
every individual to teach, (p. 278 sq.), the same defective definition 
of education (pp. 236-8), the same theory that the right of the state 
to teach is implied in the right to govern and judge (cf. p. 254). 

The fault we have to find with Dr. Bouquillon's treatment of his 
revered friend Sauve, however, is not so much for what he has taken 
from this excellent author, but rather for what he has omitted. Had 
he given us Sauve's treditist pur et simple, with all the faults we have 
referred to, he would have conferred a favor on us and a benefit on 
Catholic education; but he has given us Sauve's concessions to civil 
government without giving us Sauve's demands for family and Church, 
without giving us Sauve's uncompromising conditions. 

' Questions religieuses, &c. (2 ed.). Paris, 1S88. c. 10. p. 236, sq. 



Dr. Boiiqiiiljoris Authorities. 37 

Lest we should be accused of unfairness to Dr. Bouquillon we shall 
extract a few passages that will show clearly what is Sauve's teaching 
as regards the main issue. 

" The Church has the right to establish universities, colleges, schools 
of every kind, in which she may teach by professors sufficiently 
capable, not only in the sacred, but also in the profane sciences" 
(p. 240-41). ^ 

" One of the duties of civil legislature is to acknoivledge the right of the 
Church in this matter [of education], instead of hindering her exercise of 
that power which in the designs of God is called upon to promote it 
to the utmost of its power, according to the circumstances of time 
and place " (p. 243). 

^'■Parents have certainly the right to educate their children — a right 
which the state cannot suppress or render inefficacious at pleasure, nor con- 
trol arbitrarily. Before the civil authority, domestic authority has 
natural rights of which the state cannot lawfully deprive it " (p. 423). 

"The state cannot without flagrant injustice arbitrarily take the 
place of the parents to dispense to their children either the physical 
or the intellectual and moral nourishment. The Catholic Church does 
not permit that children be taken from their parents against their 
will, even in behalf of their eternal salvation, for the sake of baptiz- 
ing them " (p. 245). 

" Parents may not directly or indirectly be forced to send their children 
to any school, if they wish of themselves or through others to give 
them a suitable education. They have also the right to demand that 
where schools are supported at the public expense they respond to 
their just demands from the Catholic standpoint ; or at least that the 
state support Catholic schools where they may send their children in 
all security." 

^'■The state has no right to teach error, nor those truths which it is un- 
lawful to communicate to others [e.g., Lord Byron's poems or certain 
parts of physiology to children] (p. 255). The state which makes a 
profession of religious indifference or hostility to Catholic doctrine is not 
fit to educate children and yot/th, since it is the will of the Creator that 
these stages of life should be instructed according to the divinely 
established order. But the instruction given by teachers who are 
either indifferent or hostile to the true religion, if not essentially per- 
verse, is, at least, very dangerous, even though the teacher (a thing 



38 TJie State Last. 

difificult to conceive) should altogether abstain from every attack, 
direct or indirect, on religion." 

Mons. Sauve (p. 257 sq.) emphatically condemns the so-called 
neutral or mixed or secular sehools, and proves his position from the 
decrees of the Church, the letter of Pius IX. to the Archbishop of 
Freiburg, July 14, 1864, the Syllabus, and the Instruction to the 
American Bishops, June 30, 1875. He condemns state monopoly in 
these words: 

" The government which against the rights of the Church and of 
the family, contrary to the lawful demands of the citizens and the 
interests of society itself would exercise a monopoly of the education 
of children and of youth would commit an inijustifiable act of tyranny, 
which can be defended only by mere sophistry " (p. 262). 

" If a commonwealth, composed of different religious denomina- 
tions (divisee de croyance), and without any state religion, admits 
freedom of worship, and if the government of such commonwealth 
cannot, or will not, give a Catholic education, it must in that case abstain 
from teaching altogether. The establishment of a teaching body in 
the name of such a government would be irrational and unlauful; 
for without unity of doctrine a body of teachers is incapable of 
exercising the two functions of education which consist in forming 
and nourishing the intellect with truth, and directing the will towards 
the good " (p. 264). 

" The state has not the same right to teach as the Church and the family^ 
both of which have a right based on absolute duty., while the state has 
but a relative duty to teach — a duty which does not exist except when the 
education given by the Church, by parejits, and by individual teachers is 
insufficient from the standpoint of social interests " (p. 268). 

In summing up the rights of the state in regard to education Sauve 
says (p. 277): — 

(i.) "The state has not the exclusive right to educate and cannot 
exercise this right except in conformity with the order established by God, 
respecting the rights of Church, fa?nily and individual. " 

(2.)"The state has the right to teach all that is useful and good to 
communicate to others, provided it conform to the superior laws which 
bind it [among these laws one is to respect the rights of Church, fam- 
ily and individual]." 

Again, he cites and adopts the words of M. Chesnelong: 



Dr. Bouquillons Authorities. 39 

'"The state has the right for a social interest, and in the case of 
the insufficiency of free education [i.e. by the Church, and individ- 
uals] and also the duty to give an education at the public expense 
under the threefold condition — that it offer such education to all with- 
out forcing it on any one; that, besides this state education free (and 
good) education may be carried on without hindera?tce j and, finally, that 
the public education respect the conscientious convictions oi the subjects " 
(p. 277-78). 

" The state of itself can exercise no right over schools established by 
the Church: for civil power has no right over things sacred. But the 
Church can gra?it to the state certain faculties by way of indult or concordat; 
or she can tolerate that some of her rights are not entirely acknowl- 
edged and exercised" (p. 308). 

" The state has not such authority over education that it can at 
pleasure substitute itself iox the family in the functions of an educator, 
penetrate into the sanctuary of the household (except in the case of 
crime or misdemeanor) and arbitrarily control the education which is 
given in the family." 
"The parents have the right and duty to give to their children either by 
themselves or through suitable teachers that education which may seem nec- 
essary or useful J they have, likewise, the right to supervise the instruction 
given to their children " (p. 309). 

What, then, is the teaching of Sauve ? Abstracting from the few 
false or inaccurate notions already noticed it is the teaching of 
Taparelli whom he closely follows, and frequently cites; the teaching 
of von Hammerstein, Costa-Rossetti and Cavagnis, whom he also 
quotes with approval. Is it also the teaching of Dr. Bouquillon? It 
is; and it is not. It is Bouquillon's teaching in as much as the latter 
takes most of his matter and his arguments from Sauve to establish 
the power of the state; it is not Dr. Bouquillon's, in as much as he 
sadly minimizes, or rather disregards, the rights of Church and 
parents so staunchly defended by Sauve, and only seeks to magnify 
the civil power. 

The impression we received from reading Dr. Bouquillon's 
pamphlet was that the essay was first written exclusively on the rights, 
duties and authority of the state; and that it was only on second 
thought that the author decided to introduce the individual, the fam- 
ily and the Church in order to give the work some show of complete- 



40 The State Last. 

ness. When we read those stern and uncompromising conditions 
with which Mons. Sauve limits the civil power; when we con- 
sider his fearless demands for the freedom of the Church and of the 
family, we doubt very much whether he would sanction this use of 
his excellent work even by his most admiring friend and disciple. 
These were the very parts of Sauve's valuable treatise on the right of 
education which would have been most timely. A plea for state 
rights and government interference was uncalled for. 

7. There is one more authority upon which Dr. Bouquillon ev- 
idently lays great stress. This is not the authority of a single theo- 
logian, but the collective authority of the papal theologians of ihe 
Vatican Council. He says (p. 14-15): — 

We will close this list of authorities by giving the opinion of the theologians com- 
missioned by Pius IX. to prepare the subject matter of the discussions of the Council 
of the Vatican. They intended toproclaim the right of the Church to watch over the edu- 
cation, religious and moral, of Catholic children, but at the same time they most ex- 
plicitly recognized the right of the state to educate. 

Here are the words of the proposed schema {?) on this point : " Non negatur jus 
potestatis laicse providendi institutioni in litteris ac scientiis ad suum legitimum finem 
et ad bonum sociale, ac proinde etiam non negatur eidem potestati laicse jus ad direc- 
tionem scholarum, quantum legitimus ille finis postulat." [The right of the civil power 
to make provisions for instruction in letters and in the sciences for its own legitimate 
purpose and for the common good is not denied [i. e. in the schema]; and, therefore, this 
same civil power is not denied the right to the direction of schools, as far as that 
legitimate purpose demands]. 

For the benefit of those who may not be able at once to appreciate 
the value of this argument we will here note: first, that this schema 
Vaticanum is not a decree, nor collection of decrees, of the Vatican 
council; it is only a collection of points of doctrine, &:c. that were pre- 
pared by a committee of theologians appointed by the Pope, to be 
submitted to the council for discussion — to be accepted, rejected or 
modified, as the Council would deem proper. This schema, although 
of great theological value, has therefore, no special sanction of the 
Pope, or of the council, or of the Church, more than any collection of 
theses on theological matters drawn up by, and representing the teach- 
ing of, any learned body of theologians — say, the theological faculty 
of a university. 

Secondly, the words cited by Dr. Bouquillon are not iakeij from the 
schema itself, but only to be found among the voluminous and elabor- 
ate notes with which the schema was accompanied (note 47). Now, 



Dr. Boiiqiiillons Authorities. 4I 

what is the import of this note ? This note is merely negative and is 
not intended to express any positive opinion on the matter in ques- 
tion. It only states what is 7iot proposed for definition, but has been 
wisely omitted, in that passage of the schema (c. xv.) to which this 
note refers. The theologians in this note will only remark for the 
benefit of the fathers of the Council, that the question in regard to 
state rights in education will still remain an open question. Dr. Bou- 
quillon should have made a distinction between the schema itself and 
the note, and should not have quoted this remark as part of the 
schema. It makes a great difference whether these words are in- 
tended by the learned theologians to be proposed for definition, or 
simply to express what is not intended to be defined. The reference 
in foot-note (p. 15) is not sufficient to prevent a misconception in 
the popular mind. 

It might seem strange that Sauve, who was himself one of the 
committee appointed to compose the schema and the notes, makes no 
mention of this note, which was certainly familiar to him and no 
longer an official secret when he published his work (1888). He ev- 
idently knew that it had no weight as an argument. To Dr. Bou- 
quillon, it seems, is due the entire merit of bringing this brand new 
weapon into the field. Stretched to its utmost, however, this note 
would ascribe no more power to the state than is granted by Catho- 
lic theologians generally. So much on the note. 

Now what does the scfiema itself teach ? It rejects in the first 
place, in the strongest terms the errors already condemned by the 
syllabus, and other papal utterances. 

" Among the violations of the most sacred rights perpetrated in 
our age, to infect the nations with error and corrupt Christian mor- 
als amongst them, that one is the most pernicious which insiduously 
contends that all schools are to be submitted to the the secular pow- 
er so that the authority of the Church to provide for the religious in- 
struction and education of Christian youth may be altogether 
thwarted. Nay, men have gone even so far as to assert that the 
Catholic religion should be altogether excluded from public educa- 
tion and that the schools should be merely scientific. Against this 
corruption of sound doctrine and morals, from the very purpose of 
the Church founded by Christ — to lead men through salutary faith 
and discipline, by her teaching and her guidance, to eternal life — all 



42 The State Last. 

must acknowledge the right and duty in virtue of which she [the 
Church] carefully provides (pervigilat) that the Catholic youth is 
rightly educated, above all in true faith and pure morals." 

Those are the words which we would have expected Dr. Bou- 
quillon to have cited for the benefit of American Catholics, not the 
minimizing note (47). But the Doctor in indicting his pamphlet was- 
too jealous of the interest of the state and thought the Church would 
look out for herself. 

The language of the schema proper is clear, forcible, and uncompro- 
mising. Yet there is hardly any doubt, that, if the matter had come 
to be discussed and defined the definition would have been still more 
comprehensive. This is manifest from the postulate submitted to the 
council by Mons. Greith, bishop of St. Gall, April 5, 1870, demand- 
ing the condemnation of the so-called mixed school system. This sys- 
tem generally known in Germany and Switzerland under the name of 
simultaneous schools, consists in this, that the pupils of different re- 
ligious denominations frequent the same school, have the secular 
instruction in common and the religious instruction separate. These 
schools are manifestly, from a Christian and Catholic standpoint^ 
preferable to our so-called non-sectarian system. And yet the 
Bishop in his postulate describes them as seats of moral contagion^ 
which infect the minds of youth with the poison of impiety, or of in- 
differentism. ' 

Hence he concludes that the council cannot pass them over in si- 
lence, and demands: (i) that the council condem>i mixed schools, of 
whatever kind or grade; (2) that it earnestly exhort the bishops,, 
parish priests and parents — the bishops, to fight with all their power 
against such schools; the parish priests, to try to avert the Chris- 
tian youth from them; the parents never to intrust their chil- 
dren to them; (3) that it admonish the civil magistrates, to restore to 
the Church the schools of Catholic foundation taken from her by 
violent and unjust legislation, and to grant to Catholics that freedom 
of instruction 7vhich, for the rest, paternal authority can justly claim. ^ 

' Sed nit in eo [schemate] dictum est de scttolis mixtis, qutis licet sicut quredam 
pestis puerorum mantes vel impietatis vel indifferentismi veneno inficiant, ubique loco- 
rum passim eriguntur et catervatim a catholica juventute frequentantur. 

* (l) Scholas mixtas cujuscumque generis ac oidinis reprobare. (2) Episcopos, par- 
ochos et parentes serio adhortari ; utpote Episcopos, ut pro posse suo contra ejusmodi 



Dr. Boiiquillon s Method. 43 

That the demands of the bishop of St. Gall were in this case alto- 
gether in keeping with the spirit of the Church and the teaching of 
the Holy See may be concluded from the words of Leo XIII. to the 
French bishops in the letter dated Feb. 8, 1884: " The Church .... has 
always openly condemned the so-called mixed or neutral schools." ' 

These are the genuine sentiments which prevailed at the Vatican 
Council and which would have, doubtless been proposed in the final 
definition, if the question had come to a discussion and decision. 
But from Dr. Bouquillon's book one who knew nothing of the Vati- 
can Council might think that the theologians were preparing, and that 
the fathers were ready to approve, an eloquent plea for government- 
al rights in education. 

We dispense with the examination of the second category of au- 
thors cited by Dr. Bouquillon as such of whom only " mention must 
be made," and take for granted that whatever authority they have is 
against the Doctor. Should he, however, claim that these authors also 
sustain his position, we are prepared to take the trouble of examining 
them for the benefit of all interested in this question. 

It would be an easy task to establish a consensus of Catholic writers 
on this point, if time and space permitted. For the present, however, 
we shall only refer the reader to Judge Dunne's learned argument in 
the Quigley case before the circuit court of Ohio where he gives an 
extensive, though by no means complete, list of authorities " in sup- 
port of the proposition, that under the natural law control of the 
education of the child is a parental right, which the state may not 
arrogate to itself."^ 

IV. Dr. Bouquillon's Method. 

The Doctors's introduction commends itself by its scholarly sim- 
plicity and directness. He says: — 

We reduce the subject matter of our paper to the following four questions : right to 
educate, t?iission to educate, authority over education, liberty of education. Though 

Scholas militent; /arac/iw, ut Christianam juventutem ah eis arcere studeant ; /rtr^«/i?j', 
ne pueros suos ejusmodi scholis unquam committant. (3) Magisttaiits civiles ad' 
monere : ut scholas Catholicse fundationis earumque facultates Catholicis iniqua vi et 
lege subtractas re.?.{\\MB.x\t, liberamqite puero>-um instructionem ipsis concedant ; quam 
paterna utique potestas jure exigere potest. 

' Ecclesia. . . .semper, scholas quas appellant mixtas, vel neutras aperte damnavit. 

^ ( Compulsory Education, Catholic truth Society St. Louis 1891, p. 34. sq.). 



44 TJie State Last. 

these four aspects of the educational question touch at many points, we prefer to treat 
them separately. This plan may force on us some repetitions, but in compensation, it 
■will enable us to avoid the ambiguities and confusion that too often involve in darkness 
this important subject. We will examine these four questions from the point of view of 
the ifidividual, i\iQ/at>tily, the staie, the Church. ' (Italics ours). 

It was a veritable puzzle to us, however, how and why Dr. Bouquillon 
could pitch on such a division of his subject; and how such a dispo- 
sition could contribute anything towards avoiding " ambiguities and 
confusion." This division seems to us to produce " confusion worse 
confounded." First of all, we are unable to see how the Doctor could 
separate right and auiharity and make them coordinate parts, whereas 
every thinkable authority is necessarily a right, though every right 
may not be properly termed an authority. Hence it is that the author 
himself has been unable to keep these two points separate though he 
did endeavor to draw a line of demarcation. He says (p. 11-12): — 

"The right of teaching, as far as the state is concerned therein, means [the right ol] 
establishing schools, appointing teachers, prescribing methods and programmes of 
study: the state teaches in the same way as it governs and judges, viz., through dele- 
gates fitted for such functions." 

The authority over education is thus defined (p. 21) : — 
Authority over education, or the control of education, must not be confounded with 
the right to teach. The right to educate, being, as we have defined it, a moral faculty 
to impart to others those things which one is fit to impart licitly and usefully to the end 
of forming the mind and heart, belongs to whomsoever has the fitness required. Au- 
thority over education is the right of watching over, controlling, and directing educa- 
tion. This authority belongs to him or to those who are vested by natural or positive 
law with the powers required and sufficient in the premises. ^ 

When we come to examine the various functions of this authority ox 
control on the part of the state we find that it very nearly coincides 
with what has been asserted under the heading: M.? Right of the state 
to Educate : viz., the right of " overseeing the education " (p. 23), of 

1 Nous verrons successivement si I'Eglise, si les parents, si I'Eiat, si les simples indi- 
vidus et les associations peuvent revendiquer ce droit, a quel tilre et dans quelle mes- 
ure. Ce sera I'objet des paragraphes suivants. Sauve, 1. c. p. 238. 

'^ Le pouvoir ou I'autorite sur I'enseignement ne doit pas se confondre avec le droit 
d'enseigner. Le droit d'enseigner, en effet, consistant dans la faculte morale d'appren- 
dre a d'autres ce qu'on est apte a leur communiquer licitetnent et utilement pour former 
leur esprit et leur cceur, appartient naturellement h, quiconque poss^de cette aptitude. 
Le pouvoir sur I'enseignement n'etant autre chose que le droit de veiller sur Tenseigne- 
ment et de le diriger d'une maniere normale, ne compete qu'a celui ou a ceux qui sont 
investis par le droit naturel ou par le droit positif d'une autorite suffisante a cet ^gard. 
Sauv6 1. c. p. 288. 



Dr. BouquillofC s Method. 45 

"testing the fitness of teachers" (pp. 24-27), of "compelling par- 
ents " to fulfil their duty in regard to their children, of prescribing a 
certain "standard" or " minimum " of education (pp. 27-29). Why 
these functions should be classified as authority or control, while 
"establishing schools, appointing teachers, prescribing methods and 
programmes of study " as above described (p. 11-12) are but rights, 
is not patent to the reader. We can see no reason for the adoption 
of this division between the right and authority of education except 
in the mind of the writer; who, by the way, in this point, as in many 
others, goes a shade too far in his literary appreciation of Mons. Sauve, 
who happens, in our opinion not luckily^ to have pitched on the same 
division. ' 

It was a bad improvement on his master, when Dr. Bouquillon 
headed the second part of his pamphlet; The Mission to Educate (Sauv6 
uses devoir) ; for a mission signifies a duty imposed in virtue of a 
positive charge or mandate. This was also bad policy from Dr. Bou- 
quillon's standpoint; for, if education is a mission, where is the mis- 
sion of the state to educate ? The Church has a mission in virtue of 
her foundation; parents have a mission by nature itself, by positive 
divine command (Gen. i, 28), in virtue of the sacrament of matrimony, 
and by the laws of the Church; but where is the mission of the state ? 

In the subdivision of his subject Dr. Bouquillon reverses the order 
followed by Mons. Sauve. The latter has the Church, the parents, the 
state, the individual; Dr. Bouquillon, the individual, the family, the 
state, the Church; The Doctor himself, however, feels the inconven- 
ience of this division; for after the first part he dismisses the '■'^indi- 
vidual" altogether, giving him neither mission, nor authority nor liberty 
to educate, satisfied with barely vindicating for him the right to ed- 
ucate; he treats in globo the last point, Liberty of Education; which he 
defines thus: — 

And now were we to define in what consists true liberty ot education, that liberty 
which is the honor of a people, worthy and capable of self-government, we should say 

' Sauve 1. c. thus divides his entire subject : Art. I. Du droit d'enseigner. Art. II. 
Du devoir d'enseigner. Art. III. Du pouvoir ou de I'autorite sur I'enseigement. Art. 
IV. De I'application des vrais principes sur I'enseignement. The last article of the 
French Monsignore has been omitted, probably because the writer had decided not to 
make any practical application, or because the application did not suit his purpose; he 
compensates us, however, for this loss by the insertion of a section on the liberty oi 
education. 



46 The State Last. 

tliat it consists in the absence of all useless obstacles to the comniunication of truth on 
the part of individuals, families, associations, of all those in a word, who are fit to 
teach. This liberty, thanks be to God, exists in the United States, nowhere so wide 
and sacred. 

We take no exception to this definition of the liberty of education 
and we thank God with Dr. Bouquillon that we have this liberty in 
the United States. We have thus far the liberty of educating our 
own children according to our own convictions, because American 
common sense has always vindicated the principle of parental right 
as against state interference, whatever theorists might think, and 
write, and speak to the contrary; and we have little fear that Ameri- 
ca will swerve from this principle. For if Americans have inherited 
anything praiseworthy from those they love to call their Anglo-Sax- 
on forefathers it is the principle that every man's home is his castle; 
and to the home, that is, to parental authority belongs, in the very 
first place, the education of the young. The idea of state education 
is not American; it is an exotic growth, which will hardly thrive in 
this country. Americans, we hope, will always be so jealous of their 
personal and domestic liberties that they will shrink from putting 
them into the hands of commissioners and superintendents of educa- 
tion, or of school boards and school teachers. . Thus much only we 
would say to Dr. Bouquillon and his advisers: If this price- 
less boon of liberty exists in the United States, why not leave good 
enough alone ? Why invite state interference ? Why labor to estab- 
lish a principle which, if once admitted, necessarily leads to educa- 
tional tyranny, to state monopoly, to thraldom worse than Spartan? 
Let us not, however, exaggerate our freedom of education; it is 
not an unmixed good to have the freedom of educating our own 
children and the duty of paying for the education of our neighbor's 
children besides. 

Here we would fain bring our investigation to a close, but we must 
still crave the indulgence of our readers and consider — 

V. The Details of Dr. Bouquillon's Procedure. 

I. We have already pointed out that Dr. Bouquillon proceeds from 
a defective definition of education which leads him to various false con- 
clusions — e. g., that every individual or corporation has the right to ed- 
ucate, and, consequently, that the state has the right to educate. We 
have shown that his argument in favor of state education is fallacious; 



The Details of Dr. Bouqiiilloti s Procedure. 47 

we have proved that his authorities do not sustain him. We also ad- 
verted to the fact that his treatment of the rights of the family and of 
the Church is very deficient. Herein the Doctor most grievously 
fails, but more by omission than by commission. In fact, it would 
almost seem as though he undertook to treat the rights of parents and 
of the Church for the sole purpose of showing us that they are not 
paramount, and 'to take occasion to remind us that the state has also 
its say in the education of our children. 

a. Thus (p. 10) after quoting St. Thomas, Taparelli and Leo XIII. 
to prove the absolute, inalienable and indefeasible right of parents to 
educate their own offspring as against state and even Church (in case 
•of infidels), instead of drawing the conclusion that is evidently con- 
tained in the premises he goes on to remind us that this right of par- 
ents is not ''absolute, unlimited, independent, but subjected to the 
control of authority, civil and religious." Now, if by this control or 
supervision, as far as the state is concerned, he would understand the 
control or supervision which the state justly exercises over other ex- 
ternal domestic affairs we are all at one with him, and his remarks 
are superfluous. For as civil authority can, and ought to, protect 
the wife who is ill-used by her husband, so it can, and ought to, pro- 
tect the child, who is evidently brought up for misery, to be a nui- 
sance and a burden to the community. But if this right of control 
or supervision should imply the right to interfere in the education it- 
self further than to offer facilities and inducements, we say that the 
state oversteps the limits of its power and arrogates to itself rights 
it cannot prove, consequently, rights which it does not possess; for a 
right that cannot be proved is no right. 

b. To the mission (i. e. the duty) of parents to educate, the Doctor 
devotes little more than half a page of his pamphlet (p. 17). But in 
those few lines he makes the suicidal concession that "the mission of 
parents is to form men for the Church and the state; " and that " evi- 
dently this formation implies the development of the physical, intellec- 
tual and moral faculties " (Italics ours). From this mission, he admits, 
that the right of parents to educate " mainly springs.^' Therefore, 
according to the Doctor's own admission, the parents have the right 
and the duty to superintend the physical, intellectual and moral (i. e. 
the entire) education of their children. But if the parents have the 
right to superintend the entire education, what, then is left, to the 



48 Tlie State Last. 

state in normal circumstances, but to offer facilities, &c. ? Then 
the Doctor goes on to confirm these statements by the passage 
above cited from Taparelli, in which the Roman philosopher teaches 
that "the parent has the obligation of instructing the child and at- 
tending to his instruction until the day when the reason of the youth is 
matured. . . . until the child is nearly as well developed as the father. " Where, 
then, does the Doctor leave room for the state to step in and contrib- 
ute its quotum to the education of the child ? 

c. To parental authority in education the Doctor gives not quite a 
page of his valuable space (p. 22). But here again he admits all that is 
desired to prove that the parent, in normal circumstances, has 
the right to control the education of his child to the exclusion of all 
others. 

Parents have aiithoiity to regulate, diiect, and control the education of their children. 
They may teach their children tlianselves or get them taught by others ; they may choose 
the masters to whom they confide them, determine the scie?ices thty wish to be imparted 
to them, the means of correcting them. Other individuals, associations, municipalities, 
and the state should take account of the wishes of the parents in the organization of 
schools ; for the fathet can never lose control of the education of his child. (Italics 
ours). 

The Doctor, after these admissions, proceeds to administer a gentle 
reminder that " parental authority is subordinate " to higher authority, 
and quotes a long passage from Charles Perin, which only goes to- 
show that children may " claim from the state that protection which 
parental authority might fail to give j that at times they may need de- 
fence against the abuses of that very parental authority which should 
protect them ;" that there is a limit to paternal jurisdiction — a truth 
which no one denies. No one will vindicate the same right or author- 
ity to the father of the family in our day as was given to the patriarchs 
of old, who were invested at the same time with parental, sacerdotal and 
kingly power. This limitation of paternal power, however, does not 
reo-ard the work of education as such, but the abuse of paternal au- 
thority or the neglect of manifest duties in regard to children. The 
author, therefore, again goes out of his way to impose restrictions on 
paternal authority, or to treat us to a mere truism. 

As Charles Perin is a writer of the highest authority on social sub- 
jects, and has been repeatedly quoted by Dr. Bouquillon, we may be 
allowed here to give his idea of education, as it should be. We find 
it well expressed in the words which he adopts from the Etudes Re- 



The Details of Dr. Bouquillons Procedure. 49 

ligieuses for March 1874, in the work cited by Dr. BouquiUon. ^ "The 
perfect order of public instruction which best corresponds to the nor- 
mal state of society is the following-that the Church alone, actually 
and juridically, possesses the direction of instruction in all its phases. 
This order would require that the general supervision of elementary, 
intermediate and higher schools should be confided to the Church, so 
that doo-ma and morals should suffer nothing and nowhere, either in 
the religious instruction or in the teaching of the profane sciences. 
It is necessary that we should know and bear in mind that the 
Church shall never give her consent to renounce or to abridge that 
sovereign right to direct the entire education of her children, 1. e. of 
all those who belong to her by baptism ; for, the Church, as the Vati- 
can Council declares, has been placed by God as the mother and the 
teacher of the nations." The Doctor should have treated us to such 
passages from his favorite authors. 

2. The right, mission and authority of the Church are dismissed m 
the same perfunctory manner. 

a. The Right of the Church to educate is treated in one paragraph of 
moderate length (p. 16). Here we read :— 

The Church, having received dhecily from God the right to teach revealed rehgion. 
is thereby indirectly endowed with the right to teach the sciences and letters, in so far as- 
they are necessary or useful to the knowledge and practice of revelation. The right to 
teach religion comprehends the right to communicate whatever may serve religious ed- 
ucation We do not say that the teaching of profane sciences and letters belongs to the 
Church by the same title that the teaching of religion does ; much less do we say that 
such teaching belongs to her exclusively; what we do say is, that the right to spread the 
revelation entails the right to whatever is profitable to revelation. Now human sciences 
and letters are destined by God to be handmaidens of faith and of the chief among 
sciences, iheology.-This right is a special right, proper to the Church, direct as to rev- 
elation, indirect as to other knowledge. -Moreover, if we consider the Church merely 
as a human association, we cannot refuse to her the natural right to teach the truths she 
is adapted and fitted to impart to men. Such right belongs, as we have seen, to asso- 



ciations. 



In this setting forth of the Church's rights we cannot fail to discover 
in the distinguished author a lamentable tendency to minimize. We 
do not claim for the Church the direct divine mission to teach profane 
sciences, though we do respect the opinion of those who take that view. 
But we cannot, and Dr. Bouquillon cannot, overlook \h^ historic right oi 

1 Les lois de la societe chr^ienne, liv. iv. I. 2.-Not having the original at hand,, 
we quote from an authorized German translation, Freiburg, Herder 1876, p. 387. 



50 TJie State Last. 

the Church acknowledged by the greatest jurists. The Church, for more 
than 1800 years, has acted as the teacher and the educator of the na- 
tions not only in religious but also in profane sciences. She possesses, 
therefore, by immemorial prescription, the right to educate also in the 
profane sciences, not, indeed, exclusively (she never claimed the ex- 
clusive right), but free and untrammelled. And this is a special right 
which she claims against all opponents and which has been universally 
acknowledged at least in principle by the civil authority. 

Besides, the Doctor cannot have overlooked the fact that the Church 
has always claimed the right to the free control of the elementary ed- 
ucation of all her children, and that this right was safeguarded in all 
her agreements with the civil power. This is evidently something 
more than the di?'ect right to teach revelation, and the indirect right to 
teach profane science, " in so far as they are necessary or useful to 
the knowledge and practice of religion." According to the Doctor's 
teaching the Church would be in a worse condition in regard to educa- 
tion than the state or the village school board ; for the state accord- 
ing to him, has the special and proper right to educate as it has the right 
to govern and to judge by its delegates (p. 12), which is certainly not 
an indi?-ect, but a direct right. The same might be said in behalf of the 
authority of any school board or private corporation as against the 
Church. 

b. Again on the mission of the Church to educate (p. 20) we are re- 
minded that "the Church has not received the mission to make known 
the human sciences." "Her duty of teaching human sciences is only 
indirect, a work of charity, or of necessity : of charity when they are not 
sufiticiently taught by others {?), who have that duty (Italics ours) ; of 
necessity when they are badly taught, that is, taught in a sense op- 
posed to supernatural truth and morality." It was in this manner 
that bishops of old " took in hand the administration and defence of 
cities" — we might add, lead armies, and dictated terms of peace and 
war. Hence in our day ''bishops found schools, colleges, academies, 
universities" — " a regretable necessity " (Italics ours). Did the Church 
then, we would ask, overstep the limits of her mission when she 
founded and conducted such educational institutions in past ages with- 
out this " regretable necessity ? " Did not the Church found most, and 
conduct all the institutions of learning before the so-called Refor- 
mation ? Was this always a " regretable necessity," such as that 



The Details of Dr. Bouquillon s Procedure. 5 1 

which urged the bishops of Church to raise and support and lead 
armies, and defend cities and strongholds ? 

In order not to seem to dismiss this subject too lightly the Doc- 
tor here gives a side thrust to those who hold that the Church has 
received the direct mission to teach human science. " To assert that 
the Church has received the direct mission and duty of imparting 
the human sciences, is to make the Church responsible for the con- 
ditions of the sciences, letters and arts among Christian nations. . . . 
But we think that Christian apologetics should not be handicapped 
by useless and dangerous assumptions." We said before that we do 
not hold the opinion that the Church is sent directly, in virtue of her 
supernatural mission, to teach human sciences. But we do assert 
that she has a special mission in regard to human sciences, apart from 
necessity or charity (for both these come to the same thing), as 
history shows, and the laws of nations acknowledge. We would add 
that there is nothing on the Church's record to make her or any of 
her children blush at the manner in which she has fulfilled this special 
calling. If we would take Dr. Bouquillon's view of the matter, we 
would have to admit that the Church in all ages was guilty of intoler- 
able arrogance in assuming a duty which did not belong to her. The 
state, on the other hand, which, according to the Doctor's views, 
has the mission, as it has the right, strict and proper, to educate^ 
would have been guilty of the most unheard of negligence in utterly 
failing to discharge this duty towards its subjects for more than 6000 
years; for state education was a thing almost unheard of until within 
the last century. 

c. The same distinction is kept up in defining the authority of the 
Church over education (p. 28-29): '^ Religious teaching comes direct- 
ly and exclusively under her [the Church's] control, whereas secular 
teaching, which directly is under the control of the civil or domestic 
authority, depends on the Church only indirectly in the name of faith 
and morals." And to substantiate this teaching the Doctor again 
quotes the minimizing note (47) to the schema vaticanum — minimizing, 
in as much as it gives only the minimum of the Church's claims — 
not the schema itself, as might naturally be concluded from the 
context. 

This is the doctrine as laid down in the proposed Vatican Schema already quoted. 
*'Non asseritur potestati ecclesiasticse, velut ex divina constittitione consequens auctori- 



52 



TJie State Last. 



tas ad positivam directionem scholarum quatenus in iis littera; et scientia naturales 
traduntur; sed vindicatur ecclesire auctoritas ad directionem scholarum, quantum ipse 
finis Ecclesiie postnlai; adeoque asseritur jus et o?hc\\xw\ prospiciendi fidei ct christianis 
inoribus juventntis cailioUca hocque ipso cavendi ne pretiosa hsec bona per ipsam insti- 
tutionem in scholis corrumpantur. Hoc jus Ecclesise in se spectatum non minus ad 
superiores quam ad inferiores schoks extenditur. . . . C^eterum per se clarum est ex- 
ercitium hujus juris in applicatione ad diversos terminos necessario debere esse diver- 
sum." It is the denial of this authority of the Church which is condemned in the 45th 
and 47th propositions of the Syllabus. 

This note (47), as we have before remarked, does not give the 
positive teaching of the theologians of the Council, but only assigns 
the limits, or the minimum, of the doctrine proposed for definition in 
the chapter of the Schema, to which it refers. This would have been 
the place for the Doctor to insert the teaching of the Scheina itself. 
Why does he continually, as if shy of the main point, take refuge in 
this note ? Or did he think that the 45th and 47th propositions of 
the Syllabus were so well known to American readers that it is suffi- 
cient barely to refer to them ? To supply this omission on the part 
of the Doctor, we shall here insert them; and, lest some one might 
accuse us of minimizing, we shall add the 48th proposition. 

Proposition 45. " The entire direction of the public schools in which 
the youth of a Christian state is educated, diocesan seminaries to a 
certain extent excepted, can and must be apportioned to the civil 
authority, and that in such a way that no other authority has the 
right to interfere in the discipline of the schools, the direction of 
the studies, the conferring of degrees, or the choice and approbation 
of the teachers. 

Proposition 47. " The most perfect state of civil society requires 
that the common schools, which are open to the children of all classes 
of the people, 'and the public institutions in general, which are des- 
tined for teaching letters and the exact sciences, and educating the 
youth, should be exempted from the authority, direction, and inter- 
ference of the Church, and be subjected to the absolute power of 
civil authority, at the discretion of the rulers of the state and ac- 
cording to the standard of prevailing public opinion." 

Propositio7i 48. " Catholic men may approve that system of educa- 
tion of youth which is divorced from Catholic faith and the power of 
the Church, and which regards only,. or at least chiefly, the natural 
sciences and the domain of social life on earth." 



The Details of Dr. Boiiqiiillon s Procedure. 53 

These propositions being condemned by the Church their contra- 
dictories must be true. Now, as we understand them, their contra- 
dictories may be thus summarized: 

(i). The state has not absolute power over the schools: in other 
words, they are not and cannot be mere state institutions, under the 
sole direction of civil authority. 

(2). There can be no legitimate plea for exempting the schools from 
the authority of the Church, whether they are mere elementary 
schools, or literary and scientific. 

(3). No Catholic can connive at a system of education which has 
divorced itself from the authority of the Church and the Catholic 
faith, and has for its object, solely or mainly, natural or secular 
training. 

This is the doctrine of the supreme teaching-office of the Church on 
secular public schools; from which the reader may conclude in what 
light those so-called Catholics are to be considered who tell us that 
the public schools are as good as any else, and that neither they 
themselves nor their children have ever taken any harm from them— 
who insist on eulogizing and patronizing the system of secular 
public schools set up in this country. Those are the things it be- 
hoved us to know, and not the minimum of authority which the 
Church must claim over education by right divine. 

The exercise of the Church's power in various ages is again de- 
scribed in minimizing terms (p. 29). 

In the course of ages the Church has exercised this authority more or less extensive- 
ly according to circumstances. She has exacted from teachers certain guarantees of 
religion and piety; in this sense she has demanded a profession of faith from whomever 
would teach. She has also demanded guarantees of fitness in exacting the licentia do- 
cendi already spoken of. She has reminded parents of their strict duty of giving to 
their children sufficient instruction. She has at times taken severe measures in regard 
to unworthy parents. In a word she has employed, in view of the spiritual end, means 
analogous to those used by the State in view of the secular end of mankind. 

The Church has done all this; but she has done much more. The 
learned Doctor here omits what is the most important claim of the 
Church in regard to education— i. e., the free and entire control of 
the elementary schools frequented by her children also in regard to 
the secular teaching. This is a right which has always been most 
jealously guarded by the Church and acknowledged by the civil 
power. The Church has never yielded this right to any secular 



54 TJie State Last. 

authority. The Doctor cannot be unacquainted with the letter of 
Pius IX. to the Archbishop of Freiburg, dated July 14, 1864, in which 
this right is clearly set forth and strenuously insisted upon. 

" As common schools have been instituted mainly for the religious 
education of the people, to foster Christian piety and morality, they 
have, therefore, always deservedly and with perfect right claimed the 
7ohole care, solicitude, and watchfulness of the Church, above all other 
educational institutions. And, therefore, the designs and endeavors 
of excluding the Church's authority from the common schools pro- 
ceed from a most hostile disposition to the Church, and from the 
desire of extinguishing the Divine light of holy faith in the nations. 
Wherefore the Church, which first founded those schools, has always 
bestowed t\\& greatest care and zeal upon them, and considered them 
as the most important department of her authority and jurisdiction; and 
any separation of them from the Church cannot but be productive 
of the greatest loss to the Church and to the schools themselves. 
All those who would have the Church resign, or withdraw her salu- 
tary direction of the popular schools, demand nothing less than that the 
Church should act against the behests of her Divine Founder, and ne- 
glect the most important charge committed to her of procuring the 
salvation of men.'^ 

This is the demand of the Church in regard to elementary schools. 
From these demands she never receded in principle, or even in practice. 
This right she cannot cede because it is most intimately connected 
with her divine mission. We consider it a grave omission on the 
part of Dr. Bouquillon to have entirely overlooked this most import- 
ant right of the Church, which has been always most dear to 
her. 

3. Scant as is Dr. Bouquillon's treatment of the rights, duties and 
authority of parents and Church, his treatment of those of the state is 
all the more copious. On this point he brings to bear all the treas- 
ures of his extensive learning — nova ac vetera. 

a. The Doctor opens that section entitled : The right of the state to 
educate, with the " impregnable " argument (p. 11-12) which we have 
above submitted to a separate examination. With this argumenf, as 
we have shown, you might prove anything, and, therefore, it proves 
nothing. The positive arguments which follow (pp. 13 sq.) have no 
more convincing force. 



The Details of Dr. Boiiquillon s Procedure. 5 5 

We will produce facts and documents to show that all Christian nations have always 
held this opinion [that the state has the special and proper right to educate]. How as- 
tonished Charlemagne would have been had he been told that he had no right to found 
schools ; how astonished the bishops of his time had such a doctrine been put before 
them ! Those very bishops were the men who, in the Council of Toul, exhorted princes 
as well as the ordinaries of dioceses to appoint everywhere teachers of divine and human 
learning (p. 13). 

Give US Christian princes, in a Christian state, like Charlemagne, 
princes who are the patrons, protectors and secular arm of the Church, 
and we shall gladly allow them the privilege not only of founding 
schools, but also of directing them, appointing teachers, albeit in 
agreement with the Church in all that strictly appertains to her 
domain; our councils will also encourage and exhort them to this laud- 
able work; but do not preach to us that secular princes and powers 
generally have the same right as Christian princes in a Christian 
state. 

According to Father Denifle, the eminent historian of the mediaeval 
universities, we are told, four of the universities of Italy, and five 
of Spain, had been founded by the civil authority alone (ibid). Very 
true; but who had the direction of those universities? Who filled 
their chairs ? Was it mere state officials ? Were those state univer- 
sities, or were they ecclesiastical institutions ? Let us hear the learned 
historian himself on this point. 

Of the University of Naples, which is cited as the first instance 
of a state-founded university. Father Denifle says:^ "It has been 
said that the University of Naples was a state zmiversity ; nay, that it 
was the first university founded by a secular prince. Both these as- 
sertions are false. The word state university is intended to convey the 
same meaning we attach to it in modern times. But in the middle 
ages there was no such thing as a state in the modern sense; we cannot, 
therefore, speak of a state university in the modern sense. It might at 
most be called an imperial or territorial university.'^ In those days 
there was no such thing as a secular state in the modern sense; so 
there was no such thing as a secular state university. Christian uni- 
versities, like Christian states, were governed by the combined power 
of Church and state, the Church, however, having the immediate 
control. 

The foundation of a university, however, we should bear in mind, 

' Entstehung der Universitaten. p. 452. 



56 TJie State Last. 

neither supposes nor begets, in the founder, the right or duty to edu- 
cate, nor does it make him an educator, as is manifest from daily ex- 
perience. When one of our millionaires founds a university we -do 
not see that he possesses or acquires the right to educate, or that he 
deserves the name of an educator. He himself may be untutored, 
uncultured, ignorant, and unacquainted with even the first elements 
of the sciences taught in the institution that bears his name; he would 
make a poor educator; he would be a poor hand to govern a univer- 
sity; he may be intellectually and morally incapable of performing any 
of the numerous functions, and, therefore, also of acquiring the rights, 
of education. All the right he has is to the gratitude of his fellow- 
men. In a similar way we would judge of a sovereign, or a state, 
that would found a university. 

A foundation per se neither supposes nor confers any right to edu- 
cate. By the free bounty of the Church, however, founders have al- 
ways enjoyed certain rights and privileges in regard to their founda- 
tions, e. g., the right to nominate, present, or appoint incumbents for 
such foundations, benefices, &c., — always, however, in agreement with 
ecclesiastical authority; and these rights and privileges in the course 
of time became positive laws in regard to certain foundations. But 
manifestly such cases can have little application to the question as it 
confronts us in this age and country. What are the rights of the 
non-religious state in regard to the education of Christian (i. e., Cath- 
olic) subjects ? So the problem presents itself to the Christian philoso- 
pher and statesman of our day. This is the question which we would 
have solved ; but with this question Dr. Bouquillon failed to grapple. 

What the Doctor relates of the communal schools of Spalatro in 
the seventeenth century and of the schools founded by Leo XII. in 
the Pontifical States (p. 13-14) is altogether irrelevant, as both cases 
suppose the closest union between Church and state. 

The Doctor winds up with a remark to which he seems to attribute 
great weight. "Finally," he says, "we have yet to learn that any 
Pope has ever declared that the state went beyond its right in found- 
ing schools, provided the instruction be organized in the spirit of Chris- 
tianity " (Italics Dr. Bouquillon's). Now, this assertion, which seems so 
very fairly made, is not altogether unobjectionable. This statement is, 
in one regard, too restricted : no Pope ever denied the right of secu- 
lar states to found schools at all, even though, for some reason, the 



The Details of Dr. Boiiqnillon's Procedure. 57 

instruction shiould not be organized '' in the spirit of Christianity ; 
no Pope and, in fact, no man will, for instance, deny the right of the 
British government to found schools in the East Indies for Pagan 
Hindoos and Parsees, nor of the Emperor of Morocco to found 
schools for the education of his Pagan, Mohammedan, or Jewish sub- 
jects. Nor would any one deny the right of the states of this Union, 
under certain restrictions, to establish and support secular schools for 
the education of the millions of children of its pagan inhabitants. 
The case is different in regard to the children of Christian subjects ; 
and for this case the statement of Dr. Bouquillon is vague and mis- 
leading. What is this '' spirit of Christianity ? " One will say un- 
sectarian Christianity, such as the pupil may imbibe from Emerson, 
Carlyle and George Elliot. Another will say bible-reading with- 
out note or comment ; but Catholics must say — Catholicity with all 
that belongs to it, i. e., the Church must be free not only to give the 
religious instritction full a?td entire as an essential part of the pro- 
gramme, but also to superintend the secular teaching so as to prevent all 
dangers to faith and morals. But the American, who, knowing no better, 
reads Dr. Bouquillon's statement, will argue thus: our public schools 
are organized in the spirit of Christianity in its broadest and best sense. 
The Popes never objected to such schools. Ergo our public schools 
have the sanction of the Pope; and Catholics who object to them from 
the standpoint of Christianity would be more Christian than the Pope 
himself. In our humble opinion, this statement of Dr. Bouquillon is 
too vague to bear italicisitig unless he would draw attention to its 
very broadness and vagueness. 

Hereupon follows (p. 14-15) the collective testimony of a number 
of Dr. Bouquillon's favorite authorities — Zigliara, Costa-Rossetti, 
Hammerstein and the Vatican theologians. But we have already dis- 
posed of these authorities, and have shown that without a single 
solitary exception they reject the right special diXid. proper of the state 
to educate. 

The Doctor closes this section with the solution of some objections 
(p. 15). For the benefit of the reader, and to avoid even the sem- 
blance of unfairness we shall quote his words at full length. 

At times we have heard serious men deny to the state the right to educate under the 
pretext that the state might abuse that right (Italics ours). This is bad reasoning. The 
abuse that authority may make of a right cannot destroy the right. You would not deny 



58 TJie State Last. 

to the state the right of making laws, of declaring war, because it may make baa laws, or 
lead the nation into unjust wars. Not only is such reasoning bad, it is very imprudent. 
It is true that to-day, more than ever, we must be careful not to attribute to the state rights 
to which it is not entitled ; but neither should we fall into the contrary error and con- 
test the rights to which it is entitled. That would be to deprive the state of powers it 
may indeed abuse at times, but also might rightly use ; it M'Ould be to condemn 
what governments faithful to their mission have done in the past and are doing 
to-day. 

We beg to remind the Doctor that the argument of his opponents 
against state education is not an argument ex abiisu. If the state has 
the inherent, special, and proper right to educate, there is no abuse in 
the state's discharging this office; nay, it would be a culpable breach 
of duty on the part of the state to neglect to do so. The state, 
therefore, in Dr. Bouquillon^s admission, might lawfully and laudably 
control the education of every child within its confines; it could con- 
sistently divide cities and country places into sections and districts 
and force every child to go to its own section or district school; it 
could prescribe programmes of study, qualify, appoint, dismiss, and 
retain teachers, contrary to the wishes and demands of parents and 
of the Church; for, on the one hand, the common good has the pre- 
cedence over that of individuals, and, on the other hand, the Church's 
right is in many places not acknowledged. In short, as the state 
justly monopolizes the offices of judges and other public functionar- 
ies, lyhy should it not in that case also monopolize the office of teach- 
ing to the exclusion of all others? Our argument is, therefore, not 
from the abuse but from the licit use of such a right in the supposition 
that it did exist, or is actually conceded. 

We were somewhat surprised to see that the Doctor condescended 
to take notice of the following objection: — 

It has been said that the state cannot teach, because it has no teaching to give. An 
absolutely false assertion. The state has its own docii-ines, a7id vuist have them (Italics 
ours). How otherwise could it make laws ? We must, however, admit that the state 
is not qualified to define and impose religious doctrines. It is from the Church the 
state must receive such teaching. But the state knows the natural law [?], at least in 
its fundamental principles, and is bound to secure the execution thereof; and the 
state certainly knows the rational sciences on which depend agriculture, industry and 
the arts. 

This objection is weak, if not silly ; but the answer is still weaker. 
We were reminded of old Homer's nod when we read it, but we were 
fully amazed to see that the Doctor took the trouble to copy both 



The Details of Dr Boiiqiiillon s Procedure. 59 

objection and answer almost word for word from his revered friend 
Sauve. ' 

The state assuredly may have its doctrines, and had them before 
now. Sparta had its doctrines; and Louis XIV. had his doctrines; 
and the French directory had its doctrines; and Oliver Cromwell had 
his; the communists had theirs; and the anarchists, if they came to 
rule, would have theirs. If then^ the state has its doctrines, what- 
ever they be, and if it is moreover, the God-appointed teacher of the 
people, as Dr. Bouquillon will have it, who can prevent it from teach- 
ing them, and forcing them upon us, whether we will accept them or 
not? Dr. Bouquillon gives us no solution to this difficulty; but if 
he had read and copied a few lines more from Mons. Suave, he 
would have found us an easy way out of it. " It goes without say- 
ing," adds that distinguished writer, " that if the state professes to 
have no moral or religious tenets, and if it banish religion from its 
schools, it thereby declares itself incapable and unworthy of teaching, 
as I have already said.'^ ^ 

The Doctor concludes this section (p. 15-16) by a paragraph limiting 
the right of the state. He says: " The state cannot set up schools that 
are atheistic or agnostic." But whence can he derive this limitation? 
If the state has the right special and proper to educate, who or what 
is to prevent it to set up atheistic or agnostic schools ? A purely 
secular state, call it godless, atheistic, or agnostic, if it sets up any 
schools, must set up atheistic and agnostic schools. The Church has 
no acknowledged right against such a state, and the right of the par- 
ents must yield where the right of the state begins. Therefore if 
the state has the right to educate, it can not only establish atheistic 
and agnostic schools, but also enforce attendance of such schools. 
Therefore, if Dr. Bouquillon wishes to be consistent he must either 
simply deny the secular state the right to educate altogether with 
Mons. Sauve or give it the full right of enforcing secular education. 

^ Mais, dira-t-on, I'Etat ii'a pas de doctrines ; et comment enseigner sans doctrines ? 

Je reponds : I'Etat pent et doit avoir des doctrines. Sans doute il ne lui appartient 
pas de determiner infailliblement quelles sont les vraies doctrines religieuses et mo- 
rales ; mais il doit les recevoir de I'Eglise, et il pent les enseigner an nom et dans la 
dependance de I'autorite ecclesiastique. Sauve, 1. c. 

^ II va de soi que, si I'Etat fait profession de n'avoir pas de doctrines religieuses et 
morales, et qu'il bannisse la religion de ses ecoles, il se declare par la mdme incapable 
et indigne d'enseigner, comme je I'ai deja dit. Ibid. 



6o TJie State Last. 

If he admits the premises he should not shrink from the conclusion. 
b. The weakest part of Dr. Bouquillon's brochure is that on the Mission 
of the State to Educate (pp. 18-20). There is not much to be said on 
the matter, as far as the state, at least, is concerned. Mons. Sauve per- 
ceived this fact and disposed of the duties, or mission, of the Church, 
the state, the family and the individual in a few short paragraphs. ^ 
To fill out the gap, as it were, Dr. Bouquillon here treats us to an 
excursion *on the two-fold purpose of civil power, quotes in illustra- 
tion the preamble to the Constitution of the United States, and con- 
firms his propositions on the end of civil authority — which, for the 
rest, no Catholic writer denies — by an extract from a small handbook 
on civil government by Professors W. W. and W. P. Willoughby, who, 
lAy rtd >r<»'~ o"^ their part, adopt the opinion of Professor WinslowAVilson as laid 
down in his work entitled The State. We are, therefore, not so much 
concerned with what the Professors Willoughby say as with what Pro- 
fessor Wilson teaches. In his work entitled The State \y& read (p. 666) 
'' It is the object of the family to mould the individual, to form him in 
the period of immaturity in the practice of morality and obedience. . . It 
is the proper object of the state to give leave to his individuality. . .Family 
discipline must . . . lead the individual. But the state must not lead ; it 
must create conditions, not mould individuals." And yet this same Pro- 
fessor Winslow Wilson who insists so strongly that it is the business 
of the family to mould the individual, and that this is not the business 
of the state, in the very next paragraph asserts and maintains that 
education (i. e., the moulding of the individual) is the proper right 
and duty of the state. An author who so egregiously contradicts 
himself on the same page, weighs little in the balance of authority. 
Yet it is but fair to say that Dr. Bouquillon does not quote the Johns 
Hopkins professors for anything they say on the rights of education, 
but for what they have to say on. the general functions of government 
— and that only, we would fain suppose, to pay a compliment to the 
learned professors, or to give some show of importance to his rather 
meagre subject — the mission to educate incumbent on the state. AVe 
say so because we do not see any cause why the Doctor should make 
such a parade of authority to prove what everybody grants. 

Having thus established the two functions of government — the pri- 
mary and secondary, or the essential and accidental, or the constitu- 
1 Sauve 1. c. pp. 285-287, 



The Details of Dr. Bougiiillon's Procedure. 6\ 

ent and ministrant, as Professor Wilson learnedly calls them, on the 
basis of St. Thomas, the Constitution of the United States, Mons. 
Cavagnis and Professors Winslow Wilson, Westel, W. Willoughby and 
William P. Willoughby, the Doctor proceeds to show that " the state has 
the mission to educate." To prove this he reverts to the " impregna- 
ble " argument which we have already examined in this paper — an ar- 
gument by which he might as well endeavor to prove that the state 
has the mission to prescribe a certain regime, and to administer cer- 
tain medicines to every man, woman, and child within its boundaries 
from the fact that it has the duty to promote public health. Yet, 
though the state has the right and duty to promote public health, the 
Doctor will not thence conclude that it has the duty or even the right 
to prescribe physic. 

Here again the Doctor himself shrinks from the conclusion con- 
tained in his premises, and only concludes (p. 19) that "generally 
speaking, the state is bound to take measures for the diffusion of 
human knowledge, " to which all agree under certain conditions and 
restrictions. " It can fulfil this glorious mission by encouraging pri- 
vate efforts, helping parents [that need help], establishing schools 
[where needed and not otherwise provided], appointing capable 
teachers [for its own special schools, or for other state-supported 
schools in agreement with parents and with the Church]." 

This is modestly put by the learned Doctor. But lest he should 
seem to anyone unduly to limit the function of the state he closes 
this section by reminding us that the right of the state extends much 
farther than its duty or mission. 

Finally, to avoid all danger of misconception, we wish to state that for civil society, 
as for individuals, right goes beyond duty in this matter. Therefore, while saying 
that the state should provide instruction, where private individuals fail to do so, we do 
not mean to say that the state may teach only when and where individuals fail to dc 
their duty. The exercise of the duty of the state is allowable whenever the state judges 
the exercise of this duty to be ?/jif/}/:/ (Italics ours), without being absolutely necessary. 

Therefore the power of the state is, after all, arbitrary, and can go 
just as far as the state, or politicians, or corrupt majorities, may 
choose to push it. Dr. Bouquillon will say that it must be restricted 
by the common good, by equity, by the harmony between individual, 
family, state and Church. But who is to decide what is for the com- 
mon good? Certainly the state, or the majority; not the famil}'-, or 
the Church. And where is that equity and harmony ? The Doctor 



62 TJie State Last. 

may contemplate it in his mental vision; but it is far from being actual; 
nor can it ever be actual in our circumstances. State and Church 
with us can only agree to differ, i. e., to live as good neighbors, and 
go each its own way. 

c. The autJiority of the state over education as distinguished from the 
right to teach^ is treated by the Doctor at great length (pp. 23-28). 
There is question here only of the authority of the state over " schools 
of human science founded by individuals, families, associations [the 
Church?]." This general control of the state over education is 
proved from the end of the state to promote the common good, and 
from the accumulated evidence of the .Vatican Theologians, Cardinal 
Zigliara, Sauve, Cavagnis and another Roman canonist Lucidi, who 
makes, it seems, the same admission as Cardinal Zigliara; or the 
same appropriate protest that he has no mind tQ abridge the rights of 
the state. Now, of this argument, and of these authorities we have 
already treated, so we dispense with further comment on them. 

If the Doctor had only stated the extent of this general control of 
the state and told us exactly how far he would have it go, whether it 
is direct or indirect, whether it regards the education itself as such, 
or only its external aspects and its relation to public order, &c., we 
might express our agreement or disagreement with him. But, some- 
how, the Doctor is always shy of drawing lines of demarcation. Here, 
however, he is pleased to be somewhat more explicit than usual and, 
contrary to his purpose^ proceeds to make " some practical applica- 
tions " (p. 24). 

(i). "The state," he says, " has the right to prevent the unworthy 
and the incapable from assuming the role of educators." Certainly; 
if their unworthiness is manifest from public immorality or legal 
denunciation; in all other cases, however, we hold with Taparelliand 
Catholic philosophers generally whose authority Dr. Bouquillon prizes 
highly, that in the case of private schools the state cannot inter- 
fere, more than it can in regard to servants, and nurses, or the 
officials and clerks of an insurance company, or the members and 
officers of an athletic club. 

" But has it [the state] the power to exact from those who wish 
to enter into the work of education that they give evidence of worth 
and capability ? " asks the Doctor. He answers: " We think that the 
state cannot be refused the power of exacting ordinary and reason- 



The Details of Dr. Bouquillon s Procedure. 63 

able conditions." This answer is rather timid for one who holds 
that the state has the proper and special right to educate. In his 
supposition, we would say that the state has the power not only to 
exact conditions, but to exact whatever conditions it deems proper, 
such as it exacts for the qualification of its judges and other civil func- 
tionaries — therefore, to exact that educators are trained in state 
schools, according to its own methods, and undergo whatever test it 
may thmk proper to require. But we deny the principle — that is, 
that the state has/^r se the right to educate — as arbitrary, unproved, 
and untrue; and, accordingly, we deny all the inferences. 

We are pleased to see Father Mariana quoted with approval (p. 24). 
But if Dr. Bouquillon thinks that Mariana would allow the teachers 
of Christian schools to be tested by the officials of a secular state, we 
must consider him unjust to the age and country in which Mariana lived, 
and unfair to the character of the Spanish Jesuit himself. Cavagnis, 
as we have shown, and as may be seen even from the words quoted 
by Dr. Bouquillon (p. 24), reduces this right of the state to establish 
a public test to a minimum. He exempts ecclesiastical institutions 
or schools from that burden altogether, and declares that such a test is 
rarely expedient. Are there no further means to prove the fitness of a 
teacher than a public or state examination ? Do the testimonials of 
teachers go for naught ? Everybody knows that the recommendation 
of the president or principal of an educational institution is a better 
warrant for the efficiency of a teacher than a state examination and 
certificate. Why, then, should the state interfere with the appoint- 
ment of the teachers of private schools, or with their retention in, or 
removal from, office so long as no abuse, no public crime or misde- 
meanor, has been charged against them ? If there is an agreement 
between Church and state as Cavagnis, Sauve and others suppose, 
very well; this privilege on the part of the state may lawfully form 
an item in the agreement; but neither Cavagnis, nor Sauve, nor any 
other Catholic author of name that we know of — not even Dr. Bou- 
quillon — has dared to say in express terms that a secular state has of 
itself the right to examine the teachers of a private Christian school 
or institution. And this is precisely the question the public would 
have an answer to; not, what might be, in conditions which are not 
soon likely to be ours. 

The argument fetched from the functions of the scholasticus of mediae- 



64 TJie State Last. 

val institution and from the fact that the civil authority has the 
right to confer degrees (p. 24-25) is not conclusive. First, the scholas- 
ticus was an ecclesiastical functionary, as Dr. Bouquillon himself ad- 
mits; nor does it follow that the state can, in like manner, have its 
scholasticus in every district to examine and to grant license to teach- 
ers; for, as we hold, the state has no mission to educate, while the 
Church decidedly has. Secondly, the conferring of degrees has little in 
common with the office of teaching, or the work of education. For 
what is a degree ? A degree is a testimonial certifying the posses* 
sion of certain abilities and attainments in an individual. Any one 
who is competent to judge might give such a testimonial; but, in or- 
der that it may have legal value, it must be endorsed by public au- 
thority, ecclesiastical or civil. That the state, therefore, should give 
a legal certificate of proficiency in the secular sciences or letters is 
no more a proof of its right to examine all teachers than the fact 
that it can grant a license to a pilot is a proof that it has the right 
to test the ability of all seamen. This is all the more the case in our 
times when degrees (doctorate, licentiate, &c.) do not, as in ancient 
times, confer any authority to teach, but are simply legal certificates 
of proficiency. 

(2). Dr. Bouquillon now comes to the question of compulsory educa- 
tion (p. 25). 

The state has authority to see to it that parents fulfil their duty of educating their 
children, to compel them, if need be, and to substitute itself to them in the fulfilment 
of this duty in certain cases. In the use of this authority the state does but lend a hand 
to the execution of the natural law. It forces the parents to fulfil a duty that binds them 
most strictly, it protects the child and safeguards his future, it removes from society 
most serious perils. 

We have little fault to find with this form of compulsion, if the 
Doctor would understand it to be applied only to particular cases in 
which flagrant abuses are manifest, when the natural law is evidently 
violated; and if it be not enforced by vexatious laws. To this kind 
of compulsion, authors generally do not object; and the words of 
Mariana, Taparelli and Charles Perin cited in proof do not justify 
further compulsory measures. Such is also the teaching of von 
Hammerstein, Costa-Rossetti, Sauve, Cavagnis, Cathrein, Stockl, 
Joseph Rickaby and many other Catholic authors. So far, therefore, 
we have no quarrel with Dr. Bouquillon, if he understands compul- 
sory education or instruction as these authors do, but the Doctor is 



The Details of Dr. Bouqnillons Procedure. 65 

careful not to tell how far he would have compulsion extend. Ac- 
cording to his principle that the state is strictly an educator he 
should go "as far as who goes farthest." But Dr. Bouqujllon has 
the virtue of being illogical; or he fears the imputation of " liberalism," 
as would appear from a remark to his recalcitrant readers (p. 26): 
" We have deeply at heart to remark most emphatically right here,, 
that the above named writers [he means Cavagnis and Sauve, and 
indirectly himself] have a reputation for orthodoxy so well estab- 
lished that no vague and wild accusation of liberalism will avail 
against them." Whatever may be said of these estimable-authors, we 
readily agree that Dr. Bouquillon for one is more orthodox than 
logical. 

(3). On this vague and indefinite coactive power of the state, 
however, Dr. Bouquillon will establish the right of the state to pre- 
scribe a standard, or minimum of instruction to be imparted to 
children. 

If the state may coerce parents who neglect the education of their children, so also 
may it determine a minimum of instruction and make it obligatory. Who admits the 
former must admit the latter. The consequence seems to us logically necessary and we are 
surprised that all do not see it. Consider, when are parents called negligent ? Evident- 
ly, when they do not give their children a minimum of education. If then you grant 
to the state power over cases of neglect, you at once give it power to define what is the 
minimum of education, and to exact that minimum by way ot prevention and of general 
precept. A law prescribing a minimum of instruction is nothing else, it seems to us, 
than the application of a principle of natural law to the given circumstances of this or 
that country. 

To this we would say that to determine the minimui7i and maximujti 
of instruction to be received by the child is the business, in the first 
place, of the parent or the person who, according to the natural law,, 
takes the place of the parent; as it is also the right of the parent to 
determine the kind, quality and quantity of the child's food and 
clothing, and the state has no right to interfere as long as there is not 
flagrant neglect, cruelty, or abuse. As the parent can, on medical or 
other grounds, make his child abstain to a certain age from certain 
kinds of food or drink, or certain kinds of amusement, up to a cer- 
tain age, so he can also make him abstain from learning the three R's 
up to a certain age, (say 8 or 10 or even 12 years) without getting 
a license from the state. 

But what, if in the existence of such freedom, some would remain 



66 The State Last. 

illiterate in a civilized community ? This evil, in our opinion, is not 
sufificiently grave to justify the vexation of the entire population by 
universal state interference. If illiteracy is a great inconvenience, 
parents generally will be sufficiently eager to avail themselves of the 
educational facilities offered in a civilized state. The state has other 
efficacious means of encouraging and promoting education and ex- 
terminating illiteracy without infringing on the personal and domestic 
rights of its subjects. Such means are, for instance, to offer the best 
educational facilities, to exclude illiterates from certain civil rights and 
privileges, &c. 

Imagine the state sending a programme of studies to every family 
in the country, containing reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, 
history, natural philosophy, civil government, physiology, hygiene, the 
effects of stimulants and narcotics on the human system, &c., &c., &c. 
Against a certain day before the close of the fourteenth, or sixteenth, 
(in the state of New York the twenty-first) year every boy and girl, 
from the White House down to the lowest hovel in the land, is duly sum- 
moned to present himself or herself for examination in said branches 
before the local school board or the representatives thereof, unless 
such boy or girl has gone through the course customary in our public 
schools. And in case the child fails in the ordeal, parent or child, or 
both, are to be disciplined according to law. Or such a crucial test 
must be gone through every year from the sixth to the fourteenth, six- 
teenth gr twenty-first year completed. Is it any wonder that sound 
philosophers and statesmen should condemn such a vexatious sys- 
tem ? Is it any wonder that free citizens should shrink from it ? 

And what if compulsory school-attendance is added ? In fact, if you 
once admit the principle of compulsory instruction there is no reason 
why we should not have compulsory school attendance as well. This 
is the most efficacious and most convenient means of enforcing com- 
pulsory instruction, and if the state has a right to the end, it has 
a right to the means necessary and effectual to that end. If it has the 
right to prescribe a standard or plan of instruction, it has also the 
right to see that this plan is carried out by competent officials of its 
own training. Is Dr. Bouquillon ready to accept all the consequences 
implied in compulsory instruction ? If so, why not go the whole 
length of state monopoly ? He will find eager followers; but a com- 
promise of this kind will satisfy neither his friends nor his opponents. 



The Details of Dr. Bouquillons Procedure. 6"/ 

To steer safe of these inconveniences, which nothing but a union or 
agreement between Church and state can remedy, we deny the prem- 
ises and maintain with Taparelli, von Hammerstein, Rossetti, and also 
with Cavagnis and Sauve, upon whose authority Dr. Bouquillon relies 
most of all, that the secular state has no power to enforce upon the 
children of Christian parents any form of instruction or education, in- 
tellectual, moral or religious, except i/i partictilar cases, to be proved indi- 
vidually, in which the parents are gtiilty of flagrant neglect or cruelty, or 
are otherwise incapacitated for the discharge of the duties of parents. 

We have strong reasons and good authorities on our side in this 
opinion, while we have thus far been unable to discover a single solid 
argument or a single authority worth considering against us. The 
reasons of our opponents commonly appeal only to sentiment — to 
false patriotism, national feeling, &c. We confess ourselves not al- 
together insensible to such motives; but truth goes before sentiment. 
We have given our reasons and have considered those of our oppon- 
ents more at length elsewhere.' 

The arguments of the editors of the Civilta Cattolica^ and of Costa- 
Rossetti (he might have added Taparelli and Hammerstein, who teach 
the very same, and his friends Cavagnis and Sauve, who profess to fol- 
low the teaching of these authors) do not convince Bouquillon. He ex- 

i Cf. Respective Rights, pp. 29 sq. 

The most learned, complete and convincing arguments against compulsory education, 
at least in the English language, we lake to be the pleas of Judge E. F. Dunne in the 
Quigley case in the courts of Ohio — First Argument, New York, FreemarCs Journal,' 
May 30 and June 6, 1891, Second Argument {Compulsory Edtication\, Catholic Truth 
Society, St. Louis, Mo., 1891. The brief shortly to be filed in the Supreme Court of Ohio, 
in the same case will, it is expected, eclipse all the Judge's previous efforts. Whatever 
view the court may finally take of the Judge's arguments the unbiassed philosopher and 
jurist cannot fail to see that, as far as principles are concerned, right is on his side. 
These pleas are not merely masterpieces ot forensic oratory, but specimens of the ablest 
philosophical and juridical argumentation; which, if we mistake not, will be read and 
studied long after all the pompous panegyrics of our public school compulsory system 
of education have been forgotten. 

'^ The editors of the Civilta have answered for themselves in an extended Review of 
Dr. Bouquillon's pamphlet (January 2d, 1892), and will probably again be heard from. 
They are still true to the teaching of Tarparelli and Liberatore and pronounced against 
compulsory education, in any shape. This Review has already appeared in English 
translation in various Catholic papers, and has been published in separate pamphlet by 
Benziger Brothers, New York, under the title: Education to whom does it belong. Re- 
view by S. M. Brandi, S.J. 



68 The State Last. 

amined their reasons, he says,- and found them faulty; but he does not 
take the trouble of refuting them. Need we say in return, that we 
have examined Dr. Bouquillon's arguments, and that they do not go far 
to convince us? His arguments from reason, as we have seen, prove too 
much; prove so much that he himself shrinks from the logical conse- 
quences. His arguments from authority, on the other hand, prove 
nothing, because the authors he cites, as we have shown, are one 
and all against him. 

Let us remark in passing that the fact that the "state can hinder 
parents from sending their children to labor above the strength of 
their age, say in the mines" (p. 26-27), is no reason why it may com- 
pel them to send their children to school or have them taught read- 
ing, writing, figuring and physiology. In the first instance, there is 
question of the violation of a negative precept of the natural law, 
while in the second case no part of the natural law can be shown to 
be violated. While the state may possibly forbid all that is evil, as far 
as it comes within its sphere, it can not command all that is good. ' 

Dr. Bouquillon (p. 27) returns again to his staple authorities to 
clinch his argument. He says: — 

At any rate, we are not left without respectable authorities in favor of our opinion. 
St. Thomas teaches that the legislator may take measures concerning " bonam discipli- 
nam per quam cives informantur ut commune bonum justitiae et pacis conservent." 
Jerome de Medicis, one of the best commentators of St. Thomas, in the XVI. century, 
adds to the above sentence, " sicut si princeps condat legem ut adolescentes debeant lit- 
teris studere, ut hoc studio cives informentur, ut commune bonum justitiae et pacis con- 
servent." To our forefathers compulsory education was not a bugbear. In our days, 
Mgr. Sauvd declares that he dares not refuse to the state the authority to make obliga- 
tory so much ot elementary education as is strictly necessary or useful. Nor does Car- 
dinal Zigliara dare deny that power to the state. Cardinal Manning acknowledges that 
the state has the power to punish the father who neglects to send his child to school, and 
this power is incontestably within the competence of the state. At times we have seen 
missionaries make obligatory on the faithful, not only the elementary religious, but the 
elementary secular instruction in reading and writing; and yet over such instruction the 
missionaries have only an indirect authority and control. 

To begin with the Doctor's last fact, what " missionaries " can do 
by ecclesiastical power, the state cannot do by secular power. The 
question is not of state authofity, hxat of ecclesiastical jurisdiction . Of Car- 
dinal Zigliara's teaching we have already treated. He grants /^r ar- 
gumenfs sake only to the state the power to coerce parents to have 

* Cf. S. Thom. T. II. q. 96. a. 3; Suarez, de leg. lib. III. c. 12. n. 11. 



The Details of Dr. Bouquillorts Procedure. 69 

their children instructed. We have sought in vain for any expressioi\ 
of Cardinal Manning's which would commit him to compulsory edu- 
cation ; but we did find in an article in the Nineteenth Century written by 
the Cardinal in 1883, entitled: Is Chi-istianity in Englajid worth preserv- 
ing, the strongest expressions in condemnation of compulsory educa- 
tion. 

First, the Cardinal endorses the following words of Bishop Grace 
of St. Paul, addressed to the Hon. Zachary Montgomery, approving 
the latter's efforts for educational reform as based on parental rights. 

" If you need any words of mine to encourage you in the course 
you are pursuing, you have them from my heart. Every day convnices 
me more and more that the ground you have taken in defence of the 
rights of the family against the encroachments of the state is really the 
ground upon which the opposition to the state school system should 
have been based from the beginning. Natural rights as involved in this 
questiofi no legitimate govertiment will infri?ige or allow to be infringed upon 
due proof . The law of majorities, the vox populi, has no tveight agaitistthe 
claims of natural fa?ttily rights.'' 

Then the Cardinal goes on to comment upon the American public 
school as follows: — "Such is the common school system in the Ameri- 
can Republic, over which, as yet, the Platonic and communistic theoiy 
that the children of a state beldng not to their parents, but to the state 
has never yet exerted its malignant spell. The American common- 
wealth has in it too much of English and Puritan blood, its vital rela- 
tion to our seventeenth century is too vivid and powerful, to endure 
the theory that the children belong to 'the general public,' and that the 
state may create them in its own image and likeness. Nevertheless, in 
its zeal for education, it has admitted the false principles which legit- 
imately lead to this conclusion. Education that is ovXy secular dooms re- 
ligion to gradual extinction. Education that is comtnon violates con- 
science. Education that is secular, common, and compulsory violates the 
rights both of parents and of childre^i. Logically on these principles 
the schools are schools of the state, the children are the children of the 
state, and their formation is at the will of the state against all rights, 
parental or divine.^' ' 

Thus thought and wrote the illustrious Cardinal of Westminster in 
1883. If he taught otherwise in his pastoral of 1872, as Dr. Bouquillon 

' Nineteenth Century, April, 1883, Vol. xiii. p. 621. 



70 The State Last. 

assures us on the authority of a certain P. Pradie, he has made 
honorable amends in these plain and emphatic words. ' 

St. Thomas is evidently here quoted by the Doctor, not for his own 
sake, but on account of the comment of Jerome de Medicis, in regard 
to whose authority we would say: first, that Dr. Bouquillon or Jerome 
de Medicis could hardly sustain the thesis that compulsory education 
appertains to that bona disciplina of which the Angelic Doctor here 
speaks; secondly, that Jerome de Medicis makes this remark only in- 
cidentally by way of illustration, as a point possibly appertaining to 
good discipline; thirdly, that it is by no means certain (nay, the con- 
trary is very probable) that the commentator would have such law ex- 
tend to all the youth, but only to certain youths by way of privi- 
lege; and therefore Sauve, from whom the Doctor took this argu- 
ment, very shrewdly makes such possible law apply only to some 
youths (a des jeunes gens). '^ 

Now, finally, as to Sauve's own testimony, why has the Doctor not 
given us Sauve's own words in full ? Sauve says: " I would not ven- 
ture absolutely to dispute the right of the state, at least in certain cir- 
cumstances of time and place, to make obligatory that elementary in- 
struction, which is strictly useful or necessary, on condition that such in- 
struction were, aboveall, religious and morale ^ And here the Monsignore 

' Since the above was put in print our attention was drawn to the following words 
from a pastoral of the lamented Cardinal dated Lent 1872: — 

" Every Christian child has a right in himself to a Christian education: every Chris- 
tian parent is the guardian of that right in his child. And over the Christian parent is the 
authority of the Church as the guardian of the rights and the guide of the liberty both of 
the parent and of the child. The education of Christian children in faith and morals — 
and nothing less than such formation is worthy of the name of education — belongs direct- 
ly and by divine rightt.0 the authority which in faith and morals is both the ultimate judge 
and supreme guide . . .These principles are to you as axioms both of the natural and of 
the Christian law. You need not, therefore, be told that the Civil power has received 
no right either by the laiv of nature or of Christianity^ to assume to itself the formation or 
education of the people. A zvorse tyranny could 7iot be imagined. A people educated by 
a government without faith — and what government pretends to have a faith ? — a people 
formed to the image and likeness of an atheistic Commune or a Voltairean civil power 
can only grow up to scour;.'e itself with intestine feuds, and to commit suicide as a 
nation." Can these be the words referred to by Pierre Pradie ? 

2 Cf Sauve, 1. c. p. 307. The passage of St. Thomas referred to is Sum. Theol. i, 2, 
quest. 96 (not 95) a. 3. 

■' Je n'oserais contester, entiiionenl a I'Etat le droit de rendre oliligatoire, du moins 



Conclusion. yi 

goes on to quote the opinion of von Hammerstein, who puts the same 
condition. 

This is the "be all and the end all" of Dr. Bouquillon's argu- 
ment in favor of compulsory education. Unless he would walk in a 
solitary path of his own, he must acknowledge with the authorities 
whom he " quotes in preference," that a secular state cannot by law 
enforce compulsory education in any shape or form on Christian subjects. 

Perhaps Dr. Bouquillon will tell us that he holds the same opinion. 
We would be agreeably surprised, if he did. But, we say if the Doc- 
tor does hold this doctrine with Cavagnis, Sauve, Taparelli, and others 
whose authority he professes to follow, why not say so? Why man- 
ufacture arms for those who endeavor to force upon us Catholics a sys- 
tem of secular {neutral, mixed') education which the Catholic Church has 
always wisely abhorred and condemned ? 

VI. Conclusion. 

The result to which the learned Doctor comes, we must confess, 
is most unsatisfactory. He closes with the words: — 

Education : to whom does it belong, is the question with which we started out. We 
now make answer. It belongs to the individual, physical or moral, to the family, to the 
state, to the Church ; to none of these solely and exclusively, but to all four combined 
in harmonious working, for the reason that man is not an isolated but a social being. 
Precisely in the harmonious combination of these four factors in education is the diffi- 
culty of practical application. Practical application is the work of the men whom God 
has placed at the head of the Church and the siate, not ours. 

We knew all this before; we knew more. We knew not only that 
these powers in the ideal state should be harmoniously combined; but we 
knew something about the combination and subordination of these 
forces. The Doctor has contributed nothing to the solution of the 
great problem. Nay, he has only made it more complicated for this 
country at least. He has unsettled in the public mind what was 
thus far settled, throwing before us an indigested mass of general prm- 
ciples, concessions, compromises, views and assumptions, based on 
quite different circumstances, and having little or no application to 
the conditions of Church and state in our Republic. Till now we 
have been guided in this most important matter by the intelligent 
zeal of our Bishops, by the national ecclesiastical legislation of three 

en certains temps et lieux, I'instruction ^lementaire, rigoureusement utile ou n^ces- 
saire, a la condition q'lie cctie instruction fnt avant tout religieiisc oti morale. 



"Ji The State Last. 

plenary councils, by the decrees and instructions of the Holy See 
and of the sacred congregations; we had some fixed ecclesiastical 
discipline in regard to parochial schools; but the layman, at least, 
who happens tcr read Dr. Bouquillon's pamphlet, will put it down with 
the painful impression that we have nothing fixed; and that we are, 
consequently, free to do as we please; that, before we come to any 
decided line of action in regard to parochial and public schools we must 
ransack the pedagogic literature from the Capitularies of Charlemagne 
to the works of the most recent canonist; and that on the basis of 
these researches our hierarchy have to build up that harmonious 
educational system which will give its due share to the individual, 
the family, the state, and the Church. Is this the outcome of the 
thought and activity of the first century of our American Hierarchy? 

This being the only result of Dr. Bouquillon's pamphlet, we must con- 
clude that it is most inopportune and should never have seen the light; 
for, as the author rightly remarks (p. 30) " No one is at liberty to 
teach. . .inopportune truth; for inopportune truth is truth acciden- 
tally injurious." 

The mischief likely to follow from this publication will be all the 
greater, owing to the well-deserved reputation of its author for or- 
thodoxy and true ecclesiastical spirit, as well as for solid and exten- 
sive learning; owing to the fact that it will be taken at least by 
outsiders to represent the teaching of the Catholic University of 
America; and that it purports to have been written at the request, 
though not at the inspiration, of ecclesiastical authorities (see pref- 
ace). Now we would be sorry to detract one tittle from the well- 
earned renown of the learned author, or to say a single word derog- 
atory to that promising institution of which he is a conspicuous 
light, or to seem in the least disrespectful to any, even the lowest, 
ecclesiastical superiors. 

Thus much, however, we may be allowed to say : first, in regard to 
the author — that although his opinion may have, and certainly has, 
the greatest weight in other matters, yet in this matter, differing 
as he does from Catholic theologians and jurists generally, even 
from those whom he himself quotes for his views in this pamphlet, it 
carries with it but little authority. Besides, it is sufficiently well 
known, at least in learned circles, that Dr. Bouqyillon does not in 
this question represent the teaching, or the opinion, of the Catholic 



Conclusion. 73 

University. And as to the fact that he has written his pamphlet at 
the request of ecclesiastical superiors, this adds nothing to its au- 
thority. We might truly say as much of this paper; but we would 
not thereby make any one but ourselves responsible for anything 
it contains. And, in like manner, Dr. Bouquillon would be the last 
to throw any responsibility for his opinions on any ecclesiastical su- 
perior. The pamphlet is, therefore, the work of an individual, and 
has just that authority which its author can claim in this precise 
field of knowledge; no more, and no less. 

Moreover, the Doctor has evidently formed his ideas on education 
in countries and under circumstances very different from ours — in 
countries where there is at least a semblance of union between Church 
and state; where there exist different conditions of right; where 
the state encroaches on the rights of the Church and the family, and 
the Church makes concessions to the state; where, owing to the 
malice of men, the Church is glad to have any tolerable modus vive-n- 
di; while here the Church is perfectly free and independent of the 
state, and the state takes no cognizance of her rights more than of 
those of any private corporation. Manifestly those principles of law 
which govern education in countries where there is union, or agree- 
ment, between Church and state can have no application to our cir- 
cumstances, unless in as far as they are at the same time the 
expression of the natural law. The natural law alone, and not positive 
laws and customs as based on agreements and concessions on the part of 
the Church, must decide the relations between state, family and in- 
dividual in this country; while the Church as such can claim only 
the rights of its individual members. The individual has the right 
to practise his religion as long as it does not clash with public order; 
but the Church as such has no acknowledged right. Principles of 
positive canon law have, therefore, little application to this country, 
as far as the relation between Church and state is concerned; and it 
would be unsafe to make any practical applications based exclusive- 
ly upon positive Church law. 

But the author declines to make practical applications (cf. preface, 
and p. 31). Practical applications from a man of Dr. Bouquillon's 
authority would, we think, have been in order. Speculative science 
is for the sake of the practical; and the science in which the Doctor 
has distinguished himself is an eminently practical one. Practical 



74 '■^^''(^ State Last. 

instruction is just what was needed and expected from him; but he 
disappointed the public expectation also in this regard. Practically 
disposed Americans, however, will draw their own practical conclu- 
sions from Dr.Bouquillon's teaching; but these logical consequences, we 
fear, will not be beneficial to Catholic interests in this country. 
Statesmen will make their application: if the state has the right 
to educate, and is. therefore, the God-appointed educator of its 
citizens, let us control education, as is done in other countries: we 
have no state Church looking on as a jealous partner to thwart our 
endeavors. Parents will make the application, and say: if the state 
is the natural educator of our children, let the state have them; its 
education is the cheapest and, from a worldly standpoint, probably 
the best; and if the state has the right to educate them, it cannot be 
wrong to let it do so. And why should not priests, too, make their 
practical applications, if one of themselves, to whom they look up 
for enlightenment, tells them that the state has the right to educate: 
Why, then, let it educate, we are well rid of the hardships of building 
and supporting and conducting our parochical schools; our Bishops 
have been too quick to impose this superfluous burden on us. May not 
even some of those who have been set by the Holy Ghost to rule the 
Church of God also make their practical applications ? 

A defence of state rights in this country like that before us is, 
therefore, to our thinking, unwarranted and uncalled for. There is 
no tendency among Catholics, that we can see, unduly to abridge, or 
in any way to imperil, state rights. And if there were, the state is 
able to take care of itself, and will doubtless do so without the aid 
of any plea on the part of Catholics, or any other religious denomi- 
nation. Such an unwarrantable plea for the rights of the state can 
only create the false impression among statesmen and non-Catholics 
— either that there is an under-current of anarchism and disloyalty 
among Catholics in this country, or that the over-zealous preachers 
of state prerogatives are guilty of servility and desirous of gaining 
popular favor or securing political influence. 

The states of this union are, as a rule, not at all eager to meddle 
in our affairs; they let us mind our own business. Why should we, then, 
invite their interference in those matters in which no right can be proved 
on the part of the state? Catholics qua Catholics owe nothing to the 
state except the loyalty of good citizens, while the state owes much 



Conclusion. 75 

to them. Their schools have no material obligation towards the state; 
on the contrary, the state has great obligations towards them ; they year- 
ly save the state many millions of dollars. Why should the state then, 
arrogate rights to the control or direction of our schools which it cannot 
prove, and which do not exist? We take this to be very bad policy 
on the part of the state. Such it has proved to be in Illinois and 
Wisconsin. The people called a halt. Such it would doubtless 
prove itself elsewhere if put to the test of intelligent public opinion. 

We cannot believe that the bulk of Americans have come to that 
pass that they are willing to have their domestic affairs controlled 
by state power, or that they are disposed to impose upon therriselves 
that intolerable yoke of paternalism which the more intelligent of 
European nations are so eager to shake off. We can hardly think 
that such a tendency will prevail in America in the long run and we 
are of the opinion that any effort to make such a policy popular is, 
to say the very least, labor ill-spent. We would not, however, be 
understood as implying that Dr. Bouquillon is an advocate of pa- 
ternalism; but so much we would say, and we believe that we have 
shown it to evidence in the preceding pages, that by his recent pam- 
phlet he has been playing vigorously into the hands of paternalists. 

Should such a policy of state education gain favor in this country, 
as we trust it never will, what safeguard would remain for the Church, 
the family, the individual ? If public opinion is worked up to such a 
pitch that the state legislatures and executives of this Union consider 
themselves justified in taking the control of domestic affairs, insinu- 
ating themselves into the household and the sanctuary, what is to 
prevent them? If it is once made plausible to the country, by good 
or bad reasoning, by just or unjust precedent, by authorities however 
insignificant, provided they be popular, that the state or public 
authority has the inherent right, special dSiA proper, to educate its citi- 
zens in the proper sense of this word, w^hat is to prevent it from 
forcing all children into state or public schools against the pro- 
tests of individual, family, and Church? The Church, as such, has 
no acknowledged right in this country, and the family and individual 
must yield to the prevailing right, or, at least to the prevailing force, 
of the state. Therefore we say that to vindicate to the state the 
right of education, particularly since such a right cannot be proved 
is, to use the very mildest expression, a work of questionable wisdom 



76 The State Last. 

— a work which is now and here highly ''inopportune" and, conse- 
quently, at least, " accidentally injurious." 

How strongly do the following words of instruction and warning 
from our illustrious Cardinal, qui nil itiolitur inepte, contrast with the 
general tenor of Dr. Bouquillon's pamphlet ? . " The religious and 
secular education of our children cannot be divorced from each 
other without inflicting a fatal wound upon the soul. The usual 
consequence of such a separation is to paralyze the moral faculties 
and to foment a spirit of indifference in matters of faith. Education 
is to the soul what food is to the body. The milk, with which the 
infant is nourished at its mother's breast, feeds not only its head, but 
permeates at the same time its heart and the other organs of the 
body. In like manner, the intellectual and moral growth of our chil- 
dren should go hand in hand; otherwise, their education is shallow 
and fragmentary, and often proves a curse instead of a blessing." 

" Piety is not to be put on like a holiday dress, to be worn on state 
occasions, but it is to be exhibited in our conduct at all times. Our 
youth must put in practice every day the Commandments of God, as 
well as the rules of grammar and arithmetic. How can they famil- 
iarize themselves with these sacred duties, if they are not daily incul- 
cated 1 " ' 

Doctor Bouquillon, on the other hand, has not a word to say in 
favor of religious education, in behalf of our parochial schools, in 
defence of the legislation of our Councils and the decrees of the 
Church concerning the little ones of the flock of Christ. He will 
respectfully beg us to remember that his theme is: Education: To 
Whom Does it Belong ; and that he has earnestly at heart to restore to 
the state, in the estimation of the people at least, that quotum in the 
education of youth, of which, in his opinion, the over-zealous defend- 
ers of the rights of the family and the Church, have unjustly deprived 
it; but we beg reverently to submit that we here speak of the 
opportuneness of his pamphlet, and that our remarks are in order. 

We have followed the Doctor patiently and impartially; we have 
studied the sources from which he gathered his materials; we have 
compared his references as far as it could be deemed necessary or 
relevant; we have carefully weighed his arguments, and have come 
to the conclusion that far from producing anything that could in any 

' Our Christian Heritage, p. 493. 



Conclusion. yy 

way contribute to the solution of the education problem in this or 
any other country, he has only involved it in new difficulties, at least 
for this country, by putting before the public a collection of princi- 
ples, partly false, partly vague and ambiguous, and altogether inapplic- 
able to our circumstances, since they presuppose conditions entirely 
different from ours. We have found his argumentation to be loose 
and fallacious; his authorities misconceived, misinterpreted, and mis- 
applied; his method illogical; the details of his procedure inexact 
and inconsistent. He has not been able to muster a single argument 
to prove the strict, special and proper right of the state to educate in 
the accepted sense of this word; with this right the whole theory of 
state education falls to the ground. 

However we would not have the Doctor or anybody else think that 
we are less friendly disposed to the state than he. True patriotism, 
it would seem to us, does not consist in throwing ourselves and all 
our concerns into the all-embracing arms of the state; but in faith- 
fully performing our duties as individual citizens. The best friend 
of the state, we observe, is he who gives least trouble to the state; 
and the most troublesome are the wards of the state. We would not 
have our children become wards of the state. If there is anything 
calculated to stamp out patriotism from the hearts of citizens, it is 
undue interference on the part of the state. Our American freedom 
consists not only in free suffrage, but also in the protection which it 
offers to personal and domestic rights, so that every one who comes 
to our shores from European states, even before partaking of the 
rights of a citizen, feels that the heavy burden of paternalism and 
bureaucracy has been lifted from his shoulders; and that he breathes 
more freely. Let us beware, then, of trying to impose upon our 
fellow-citizens that foreign and un-American yoke which we our- 
selves would have borne with reluctance. It would be highly unpa- 
triotic, or, at best, mistaken patriotism, to swerve from the time-tested 
principle, that a man's home is his castle, and to make ourselves and 
our children wards of the state. 

But we Catholics have no choice in this matter. According to the 
teaching of our Church, and according to the ecclesiastical legislation 
of our country, we can neither use, nor approve of, a system of 
education, which is divorced from religion and from the influence of 
the Church, and which regards only, or chiefly, the domain of pro- 



y% The State Last. 

fane knowledge. Any thing, therefore, that is calculated to shake 
this belief in the minds of the faithful, or to relax the discipline of 
the Church in the matter of Catholic education, cannot but prove 
highly detrimental to the Church in'this country. We would not 
insinuate that the work before us was written with this intention; far 
be it from us; but certain it is that, however sincere the intention may 
have been, the book itself cannot fail to have this effect on many of 
its readers. It was to counteract this evil, as far as possible, that 
we undertook this study, and we hope to have attained our purpose, 
as far as depended on us. We have found not an item in Dr. Bou- 
quillon's pamphlet that could make us swerve one tittle from the 
principles we have already set forth on this subject. We have trav- 
elled the whole ground anew and have only been confirmed in the 
convictions which had grown upon us in our first study of the 
question. 

We hold now, as we did then, that the parents are the God-given 
educators of their children; that the work of education is their per- 
sonal duty and their inalienable and indefeasible right, which they 
can neither surrender nor forfeit, except by crime or inability. 

We hold that the Church, too, has her God-given educational 
mission, supplementing and superseding that of parents, as far as 
faith and morals are concerned, but not confined to the sphere of 
revelation. No, we maintain that the Church has not only the tJidi- 
rect right, duty, and authority to teach the profane sciences in virtue of 
her supernatural end; but that, like every other teaching corporation, 
the Church has the direct right and duty to teach; nay, that the 
Church has by immemorial prescription the inviolable historic right 
to cultivate and to teach the profane sciences, unhindered and un- 
trammelled by any earthly power; therefore that the Church has 
the right and authority not only to teach the Christian doctrine in 
all schools and to superintend the secular teaching so as to assure 
herself that it contains nothing in itself or its adjuncts dangerous to 
faith and morals; but that she has the right to found and direct her 
own schools for the teaching of the profane as well as of the sacred 
sciences; while the elementary instruction of her children belongs 
exclusively to her. 

We hold that the sta.teper se i. e., of its own nature or constitution, 
has neither the right nor the mission, nor the authority to teach in 



Conclusion. 79 

the sense of educating, though it may and must indirectly and for 
its own special purposes exercise certain rights 'and discharge certain 
duties in regard to education — e.. g., establish and conduct military 
and naval academies, establish schools where manifestly useful or ne- 
cessary, and not otherwise provided for; found industrial schools for 
the children of the poor and abandoned classes, not otherwise cared 
for; encourage and promote scientific investigation and research, &c. 
We deny, however, that the purely secular state has the right or 
authority to enforce compulsory education, whether by compelling 
attendance at school or by prescribing a certain programme, plan of 
studies, or minimum of instruction, except in particular cases of utter 
neglect or manifest abuse of parental authority, likely to expose the 
child to moral ruin; which neglect or abuse, however, must be proved 
in each case. 

The result of our study of Dr. Bouquillon's problem: (^Education: to 
whom does it belong 1) is, therefore, a fitting supplement to Father 
Holaind's reply. Father Holaind's answer was: The Parent First j 
we add — The State Last. 



DR. BOUQUILLON'S REJOINDER. 

I. Some Features of the Rejoinder. 

After having sent the foregoing pages to the press we received 
Dr. Bouquillon's Rejoinder to Critics, which is a document of 42 pages 
octavo written in defence of 32 pages of the same size, chiefly against 
the strictures of the Rev. R. I. Holaind, S.J., of whose prompt and 
able reply mention has been made in the preceding, and against 
certain comments of the Rev. E. A. Higgins, S.J., in the Catholic 
News; and also against some minor criticisms in the American Ec- 
clesiastical Review and other Catholic papers not mentioned. The 
purport of the Rejoinder is briefly expressed in the opening lines. 

My pamphlet on Education has provoked adverse criticism. Critics, notably Rev. 
R. I, Holaind, S.J., have seen in it what I did not say, and have not seen in it what I 
did say. I feel called on to offer some explanations that, I trust, will put the truth in 
cleareir light, end misunderstandings and dissipate prejudices. 

As we have not, to our knowledge, seen in the pamphlet what the 
Doctor did not say, nor, as we trust, failed to see what he did say; 
as we allowed the Doctor to speak for himself and to say over again 
the most important passages of his pamphlet, and as we have not 
attributed any motive or purpose to him but what he himself openly 
declared, these words cannot subsequently be made to refer to us. Be- 
sides, our treatment of the Doctor's pamphlet, as he himself will", 
readily admit, is very different from that of any of his other critics 
though our opinions will be found to coincide with theirs in the main. 
In fact, our review was all but completed before any noteworthy criti- 
cism of the pamphlet, except Father Holaind's, had been published; 
nor did we deem it necessary after reading the criticisms of others,, 
whether favorable to the Doctor or otherwise, in aught to modify our 
own views or statements — not even after reading the Doctor's Re- 
joinder itself. 

81 



82 Supplement . — Dr. Bouqitillori's Rejoinder. 

We might, therefore, have dispensed ourselves from the task of 
reviewing the Rejoinder; but, on the one hand, we deemed it due to 
the Doctor and to the public to notice what he had to say in his own 
defence, and, on the other hand, we feared that, if we neglected to 
notice it, some over-zealous friends of his might give out that we too 
were refuted in advance by his Rejoinder. We, on the contrary, are 
of opinion that, if the Doctor had bided his time, and awaited our 
review of his pamphlet that he would have altogether abandoned the 
idea of replying, or would have replied in a very different tone and 
manner; and thus we might have been relieved of the delicate task of 
reviewing this review of the reviews of his pamphlet. 

The task, however, is not so formidable after all, as it might seem 
at first sight. If we deduct from those 42 pages all that is personal, 
(whether it regards the author himself, or Father Holaind, or Father 
Higgins), all that is irrelevant, all that is impertinent to the "subject, 
all that is but a repetition of the former pamphlet, and all that is 
directly met by us in the body of our review — but little will remain to 
be examined. 

Personal or irrelevant is the greater part of the first three sections 
of the Rejoinder, justifying the Doctor's object and purpose and the 
authorities and quotations contained in his first pamphlet, as also the 
first and second of his general observatio?is (pp. 1-9). We cannot, for 
instance, see how the Doctor, who was so chary of his words in some 
parts of his first pamphlet could waste almost two pages (p. 9-10) in 
defending himself against the charge of state-worship as implied in 
saying "state and Church," instead of "Church and state," while 
much graver accusations are brought against him. This making much 
of trifles is noticeable also (p. 10) where the Doctor tries to make a 
point out of Father Holaind's waiving certain abstract questions on 
the modifications of the natural law, which it would take a volume to 
explain. Had Father Holaind not had the phantasm of the volumi- 
nous work of Suarez so vividly before his mind, had he instead Mons. 
Sauve's Questions, &c. on his desk, open at p. 280, as Dr. Bouquillon 
seems to have had when he referred (Pamph. I. p. 9) to the " distinc- 
tions luminenses" ^ of Suarez (De Degib. 1. ii. c. 13), he would not have 

' Si ces distinctions licminenses de Suarez etaient presentes aux yeux de tous les pub- 
licistes, plusieurs erreurs au sujet des droits naturals de riiomme seraienl facilement 
6vit^es. Car tout droit qui n'est y>^5 command^ mais seulement arrw^epar la nature, 



The State Christian and Non-Christian, 83 

summarily dismissed these interesting questions, to "turn to the live 
issues of the hour" (p. 8). The same may be said of the paragraph 
(p. 21) in which the Doctor tries to make capital of the kind word 
which Father Holaind has for those who try to vindicate to the 
Church the direct divine mission of teaching profane sciences. Such 
methods of controversy may discredit an opponent in the eyes of the 
vulgar, but not in the eyes of intelligent readers.' 

Impertinent to the subject we would call, for instance, that long excur- 
sion (pp. 17-19) on the right of association, which has not the slight- 
est bearing on the matter in hand except through the artificial and 
arbitrary connection established by the Doctor in trying to vindicate 
to the individual- and to associations the right to educate. This 
whole discussion is exceedingly far fetched. If the Journal that 
brought the objection referred to (p. 17) is not worth naming the 
objection is not worth considering; nor is the dreaded axiom that 
associations are fictitious beings, mere creations of the lain, likely to gain 
ground in this land of freedom of association. The whole discussion 
seems to have been put here to give some show of strength and im- 
portance to the Doctor's tottering position. In like manner, the 
learned excursion on the " natural verities" (pp. 21-23) serve at most 
for filling out, and do nothing towards clearing away the difficulties 
that beset the reader's path; nay, such overloading with impertinent 
matter can only divert the ordinary reader from the main issue — a 
consummation which seems to be rather in the interest of the learned 
Doctor. 

II. The State Christian and Non-Christian. 

Waiving such irrelevant and impertinent discussions we now come 
to a cardinal point of the Doctor's teaching (pp. 11-14). 

A capital objection against me is, that in my treatment of education I make no dis- 
tinction between the state Christian and the state non-Christian (Italics ours). Most 

peut 6tie modifie, ou meme aliene par les hommes, parce qu'il depend de la volenti de 
celui qui le possede, et aussi de la volonte de I'Etat en ce qui est necessaire ou utile au 
bien commun Question religieuses et sociales, p. 280. 

1 We would have it distinctly understood that we do not undertake to defend Father 
Holaind or any other of Dr. Bouquillon's critics in these pages. We have no right or 
commission to defend them ; they are all able to defend themselves. We have to deal 
directly with Dr. Bouquillon's Rejoinder, only indirectly with his critics. 



84 Supplement. — Dr Boiiqnillon s Rejoinder. 

assuredly I make none, and no more do I make any between the family Christian and 
the family non-Christian, the individual Christian and the individual non-Christian. 
I repeat, I make no such distinction, and this is why : Civil society and its inherent 
authority are in the natural order; the Church and its inherent authority are in the 
supernatural order. ... (p. Ii). 

Here we have to deal with a lamentable confusion of ideas. This 
would have been the place for the Doctor to apply some of Suarez' 
" luminous distinctions." But here they do not serve his purpose. 
The Doctor's entire argumentation is based on one fallacy. He 
considers the civil authority (/« se^ in the abstract, and predicates of 
the state /;;- the concrete (i. e,, of the governing person, physical or 
moral) what is true only of civil authority considered in itself or in 
the abstract. /;/ the abstract it is most true that civil authority always 
regards the tempor-al, the profane (as the Doctor rightly puts it with 
Webster), and. is always the same; but, in the concrete, he who wields 
the civil power may be also invested with spiritual, supernatural 
power, whether in virtue of his office as the pope, who is lawful 
temporal sovereign, and in virtue of his office is at the same time 
supreme pontiff; or by delegation, as in the case of a temporal sov- 
ereign or ruler who, by agreement or usage may perform certain 
spiritual functions, e. g., nominate or present incumbents for ecclesi- 
astical benefices, and invest them with the power and prerogatives 
thereto annexed. 

This union of the natural and supernatural, of the tem.poral and 
eternal we find in every believing Christian. In every believing Chris- 
tian there is intelligence, or natural knowledge, and there is faith or su- 
pernatural knowledge; while in the non-believing non-Christian there 
is natural intelligence without supernatural faith. So it is also in the 
state, Christian and non-Christian, taken in the concrete; in the latter 
there is civil authority simply regarding temporal and profane mat- 
ters ; in the former there is also, or at least there may be, a certain 
amount of spiritual authority attached, whether delegated, as in 
secular rulers, or ordinary, as when a bishop is at the same time a 
ruling sovereign. 

Suarez in the very chapter here cited by the Doctor (De Leg. lib. 
iii. c. II, n. lo) carefully makes the distinction between the civil power 
proper to Christian rulers and that which they have by concession of 
the Church or by the very fact of their being rulers of Christian 
subjects. Hence it is, he says, that temporal rulers can punish those 



The State Christian and Non-Christian. 85 

vices and crimes that are specifically against the Christian religion 
as such, e. g., heresy, blasphemy against Christ, the Jewish rite of 
circumcision, &c. '' Some of these acts," he says, " belong to the 
civil authority, not of themselves, but by concession of the ecclesias- 
tical authority, and, as it were, by a tacit or express invocation of the 
secular arm.'" 

And he further adds that the civil state has the power to punish 
such crimes also, in as much as they are contrary to the peace of 
Christian subjects.^ The Christian state, therefore, may have a more 
extensive power from two sources: from the concession of the Church 
and from the exigence of its Christian subjects. This power is 
spiritual, accessory to the temporal or purely civil power. But it 
resides, or at least may reside, in a temporal ruler. Suarez, therefore, 
while maintaining the essential distinction between civil and ecclesi- 
astical authority, adm.its that both may reside in a temporal ruler, as 
natural intelligence and supernatural faith can exist in the same 
rational subject. We wonder that the Doctor cannot, or will not see, 
this distinction. This " luminous distinction " of Suarez manifestly 
does not suit the Doctor's purpose. 

The same confusion of the concrete with the abstract goes through 
this whole discussion on the Christian and non-Christian state (p. 11 
-14). When the Doctor asserts (p. 11, b) that the civil authority re- 
tains substantially the same character as under the pagan dispensa- 
tion, or as it would have m statu naturcB puree, this is true only in the 
abstract. It is only in the abstract that whatever is j-ac/-^!/ belongs to 
the spiritual and whatever is profane belongs to the civil power. In 
the concrete both these powers may be, to some extent, vested in the 
same subject, whether this subject be temporal or spiritual; not as if 
the two powers were mixed, or confused, or blended into one; no; 
the spiritual power remains spiritual and the temporal power remains 
temporal; though the former may be partially vested in a temporal 
subject, and the latter wholly or partly in a spiritual subject. It is 

' Respondeo imprimis aliqua ex his non tarn per se pertinere ad ssecularem potesta- 
tem, quam ex concessione ecclesiasticce potestatis, et quasi per tacitam vel expressam 
invocationem ejus postulantis auxilium brachii secularis (Ibid). 

2 Deinde dicimus ilia vitia et peccata quae dicuntur mixti fori, eatenus puniri et co- 
hiberi per leges civiles, quatenus supposito hoc statu reipublicse christianse illam per- 
turbant, et magna nocuinenta illi afferuiit etiam q,uoad suam pacem, et externam 
felicitatem ac conservationem (Ibid). 



86 Supplement. — Dr. Bouquillon's Rejoinder. 

only in the abstract, therefore, that state power is " everywhere sub- 
stantially the sajfie in infidel and protestant as well as in Catholic 
nations." In the abstract it is the same in China as in France; but 
in the concrete it is not the same in Genghis Khan as in Charlemagne. 
The Doctor closes his remarks on the Christian and non-Christian 
state with these words: 

I do not make nor admit the distinction between state and state my critics demand 
of me, because (i) it is unfounded, (2) it implies that the government of the United 
States is not C/iiistian, an ossii/?iption I regard as untrue in its full extent (Italics ours). 
Are my critics conscious of the unenviable position to which they are driven by denying^ 
that the state has the right to educate ? 

That the distinction is not unfounded., we have sufficiently shown. 
Nor can we see that it throws any unfavorable light on the govern- 
ment of these states. Americans, to our thinking, do not wish to seem 
more Christian than they really are, and would only enjoy a laugh at 
the expense of those whose ill-timed zeal would endeavor to make 
them seem more Christian than they actually wish to be. We cannot 
see the connection of the question — whether the government of the 
United States is Christian or non-Christian — with the subject on hand; 
unless it is this, that Dr. Bouquillon would like to sound his oppon- 
ents on this delicate matter. Well, we shall try to give a solution ac- 
cording to the Doctor's own admissions. 

a. " That the government of the United States is not Christian " is 
" an assumption I regard as untrue in its full extent " (Italics ours, p. 
14, 1. 11-12). 

d. " As to this country, it may be said truly that it is Christian /// a 
certain sense " (Italics Dr. Bouquillon's, p. 13, 1. 9-10). 

e. " The acceptation by the state of the divine law . . . has two 
aspects, negative and positive (Italics ours). The negative is the ob- 
ligation on the part of the state to make no enactments contrary to 
spiritual interests. The positive ... is the active concurrence of 
the state with the Church in procuring and furthering spiritual in- 
terests" (p. 12 foot). Now these distinctions are well taken with 
Suarez and the Vatican theologians (Schema note 45). A state in 
the latter sense is positively Christian, and in the former sense is nega- 
tively Christian. The American states do bind themselves not to en- 
act any laws contrary to religion or to spiritual interests, as long as 
these do not conflict with public order and morality; but they do not 



The State Christian and Non-Christian. 87 

actively concur with the Church in procuring spiritual interests. 
Therefore according to Dr. Bouquillon the American states are nega- 
tively Christian. 

But does the Doctor not see that our states are negatively Jewish, 
Mohammedan, Theosophian, Ingersollian, Christian-scientist, as well ? 
Their respective governments assume the same negative obligations to 
all those sects as towards Christianity, so long as their public worship 
does not clash with public order. In his reference to.Webster's eloquent 
plea for the Christianity of our government the Doctor should have in- 
formed the reader that the court, on that occasion, decided against 
Webster. 

The Doctor has, therefore, made a weak point for the Christianity 
of our government. We think that a more successful plea might be 
made for the Christian character of our national and state constitu- 
tions. The Doctor, therefore, does well to refer the reader to Aug. 
Carlier's Republique Americaine; else he himself might be driven to 
that " unenviable position " against which he cautions his opponents. 

The United States government, or the American state, therefore, 
may be Christian or non-Christian, as far as Dr. Bouquillon's argu- 
ment is concerned. But what shall we say of the Kraex\ca.rv public school ? 
There's the rub. The Doctor will hardly assert that the American 
public school is Christian. We have read a voluminous and elaborate 
digest of the laws and regulations that govern public schools in some 
thirty-eight states of this Union, * and we have not found that any 
cognizance was taken of the Christian religion and of Christian morals 
as part of the programme of studies. There we found under the 
heading J/'(9r(7Zs- and Manners, "truthfulness, "" kindness to animals," 
and even " love to God and man," but nothing specifically Christian; we 
found in some places "opening with prayer and Bible-reading with- 
out note or comment; " which, for the rest is no more Christian than 
it is Jewish; but all this has been since then in most states declared 
unconstitutional by the courts. ^ The non-Christian character of the 
schools is no mere theory; the principle is practically acted upon. 
We could name an American High School — we believe one of the 
best in the country — , for whose teachers we have the highest esteem, 
as an illustration of the non-Christian character of the' public school. 

' Cf. Report of ihe Commissioner of Education, 1870. 
^ Cf. Bardeen. School- I.aw pp. 50 sq. 



88 Supplement. — Dr. Bouquillon's Rejoinder. 

As we have been credibly informed, in a meeting of the faculty of 
said High School, it was suggested bojia fide by a distinguished mem- 
ber that the name of Christ should not be used in the customary 
prayers, as being offensive to the Jews, who frequented the institu- 
tion. The suggestion was favorably entertained and, as we have 
been given to understand, subsequently acted upon. We do not men- 
tion this fact as derogatory to the American public school, nor in any 
way discreditable to the faculty of the High School referred to. If 
we have any fault to find, it is that in said High School prayer was 
not abolished altogether. This, we think, would have been more 
consistent with the present laws and usages regulating our public 
schools. We would only illustrate the fact that, although our govern- 
ment may in some sense, be called Christian, yet our public schools 
are decidedly non-Christian; and "all the water of Neptune's great 
ocean " will not wash them clean of this "damned spot." 

Suppose we did grant Dr. Bouquillon that there was no distinction 
between the Christian and the non-Christian state, between the state 
in statu natiirce lapsce et reparatce^ and the state in statu naturce puree, 
what then ? All the worse for Dr. Bouquillon. The Doctor knows 
as well as we do that moral philosophers treat this question inde- 
pendently of all positive religion; and yet the Doctor knows by this 
time that the entire school of Catholic philosophers denies the state the 
right to educate in the proper sense of this word. Moreover, the Doc- 
tor's " impregnable " argument is taken from the standpoint of pure 
nature; but we have shown that the " impregnable " argument proves 
nothing. Whether or not, therefore, the Doctor grants greater power 
to the Christian than to the non-Christian ruler, his position is 
untenable. By his present unmistakable attitude in regard to the 
Christian state the Doctor has only weakened his position. 

HI. Education and Instruction. 

Dr. Bouquillon persists in the synonymous use of education and in- 
struction (p. 14, 11. 15-28). 

I am blamed for confusing Teaching with Education, and urging in favor of the right 
to educate arguments that avail only for the right to ceach. The answer is easy and 
very clear. 

The words Teaching, Education, may be used in a strict or in a loose sense. In the 
strict sense, education is the formation of the heart, the will, the interior dispositions of 
the soul; it is the imparting of virtuous habits. Teaching in the strict sense is the 



Education and Instruction. 89 

formation of the mind, the communication of truth. In a loose sense education and 
teaching equally mean the complete formation of man in general, or of man in any 
special avocation, of the Christian, the priest, the soldier, and the lilie. But it is ordin- 
arily in regard to the special work done in schools that the terms teaching2XiA education 
nre used; and in reference to this they are commonly employed almost indiscrim- 
inately. 

We must confess that we have little fault to find with the Doctor 
for this indiscriminate use of the terms, since the official language (it 
might more properly be called jargon) of state pedagogics would 
have it so. In the vocabulary of state school politics we find educa- 
tion^ instruction, teaching; Erziehung, Unterricht; education, instruction, 
enseignenient; educazione, istruzione, insegnaniento, &c., &c., used 
indiscriminately. In a scientific treatise, however, education in its 
stricter sense should be distinguished from education in its wider 
sense, education as a complex process from education or instruction 
as a special function. What we chiefly objected to the Doctor (supra 
p. 12 sq.) was that he takes education in the vague sense, not merely 
of instruction, but in the meaning of incidental communication of 
ideas, and applies what may be said of education in this loose sense 
to education strictly so-called — applies to education as such what may 
be affirmed only of a very subordinate function in education. This 
is a fallacy, which the Doctor, consciously or unconsciously, made 
use of to prove the right of the individual to teach, i. e., to educate. 

It is strange that the reverend Doctor cannot even now prevail 
upon himself to adopt a correct definition of education. Instead of 
'Conz€W\x\.g education as the entire complex process of the training, de- 
velopment, formation of all the human faculties — physical, intellectual, 
moral — the direction of the child or youth on the way that he should 
go, in relation to his Creator and last end, to his neighbor, and to 
himself; instead of making teaching, or instruction, a subordinate 
function or means, he falls into the new error of making education and 
instruction co-ordinate functions; and that without proof or prece- 
dent, that we could discover. We have, we may say without boasting, 
read considerably in this field of literature, and we do not recollect' to 
have met a single author worthy of notice who takes this view of edu- 
cation. We have quoted Cardinal Gibbons' definition which is cer- 
tainly the result of careful thought and collation of the best authors. 
We might cite Herbert Spencer from the agnostic camp, who takes 
substantially the same view of education. We treated the subject 



90 Siipploncnt. — Dr. Boiiquillon's Rejoinder. 

ourselves in two different publications. We may be allowed to place 
here our view of the nature of education as briefly laid down in the 
Rights of Our Li'Uh' Ones (questions, i, 4, 10). 

Q. I. " What is education? 

" Education, which, according to the meaning of the word, signi- 
fies a bringing out, is such a harmonious development of the facul- 
ties of man by external training as to facilitate for him the attainment 
of his end in this life and in the life to come. 

Q. 4. " Which are the chief functions of education ? 

"The chief functions of education are four, viz.: 

a. The physical^ or that appertaniing to the development and per- 
fection of the body and bodily faculties. 

b. " The mental, or that appertaining to the development and cul- 
ture of the mind. 

c. "■ The moral., or that appertaining to the formation and discipline 
of the will and affections. 

d. " The religious, which, though essentially belonging to the men- 
tal and moral development of man, has for its special object to fit 
man for the attainment of his last end. 

'' Hence we speak of physical, intellectual, moral and religious edu- 
cation as distinct, though not always different, much less separate 
functions. 

Q. 10. " Can a moral and mental education be imparted without re- 
ligion ? 

" A moral and mental education cannot be imparted without re- 
ligion: 

a. " Because morality or virtue, especially Christian virtue, cannot 
exist without being based on religious truths and motives, fostered 
by religious practices, and sustained by supernatural aid, which can 
only be obtained by acts of religion. 

b. " Because the mind of man cannot be perfected according to the 
intent of the Creator while the most momentous truths — the truths 
of -religion — are withheld from it." 

For the very reason that education is a complex process, an or- 
ganic development consisting of various inseparable functions — phy- 
sical, intellectual, moral and religious — we always maintained that 
the state /<-;- sc has no right to educate. The intellectual, moral and 
religious education are inseparable from one another. We cannot, 



TJie Right of Individuals and Associations. 91 

therefore, leave one to the state, another to the parent, and a third 
to the Church. " The religious side of education " as the Doctor 
rightly remarks (p. 15,1. 11) " is not within the province of the state." 
Therefore neither is the moral side of education; for as the Doctor 
again truly remarks (p. 23, 1. 11-12) "// is impossible to scpa7-ate morality 
from religion "/ and, we would add, it is impossible to separate morality 
and religion from the careful training, formation and instruction of 
the intellect, much less from education taken in its entirety. Hence 
we conclude that the instruction of childhood and youth is not and 
cannot be within the competence of the state. The Doctor, there- 
fore, speaks volumes against himself when he says (p. 15). 

Having carefully shown that the religions side of ediicatioii is not within the province 
of the state (Italics ours), I proved that the state has a right to found schools, "to pro- 
vide education in the letters, sciences, and arts," to inculcate the moral principles of 
the natural law, — in a word, to provide and to exercise authority over all that part of 
education which concerns the temporal welfare of human society. 

It will be borne in mind that we do not deny the state the right "to 
found schools, to provide edtication in letters, sciences and arts " for 
its own legitimate purposes, and in certain cases which we have 
stated more than once. The state may " inculcate the moral princi- 
ples of the natural law " in its own way and within its own sphere by 
legislation and the administration of justice, but not directly by school 
instruction or education properly so-called, except in default of those 
upon whom nature imposes this duty, and to whom it vindicates this 
right. Whatever construction, therefore, may be put on the Doctor's 
words — whether instruction or education — it is equally false that the 
state has the right special and proper to educate. 

IV. The Right of Individuals and Associations. 

The Doctor insists on his argument that the individual, physical or 
nioral, and, consequently , the state has the right to educate (p. 15, sq.). We 
feared that we were doing an injustice to him by supposing (supra 
p. 15), that he seriously wished to defend this, as an argument. But 
we now find that we were none too severe in our judgment. He says 
(p. 15-16):— 

I am met with the plea that the argument may be admitted for teaching, but not for 
educating in the strict sense of the term (F. Holaind, p, 6). — I answer: there is no 
essential difference between the formation of the mind and that of the heart, if the point 
under consideration be the right to effect that formation. But let us exchange words 
and see what kind of argument we get. What is education? The formation of charac- 



92 Siippleme7it . — Dr. Bouquilhn's Rejoinder. 

ter, the inculcation of virtue, the correction of faults and defects. But every man has 
the right to inculcate virtue on his neighbor, to correct his neighbor's faults. Among 
the works of spiritual mercy, we find not only the teaching of the ignorant^ but also the 
correction of si7iners (Italics ours), and if you should want to know what that implies, 
I refer you toYalentia, 2-2, disp. 3, qusest. 10. Correction is " qualiscunque sermo quo 
quis vel monendo, vel reprehendendo, vel hortando, vel rogando, vel quippiam indican- 
do, vel alia hujusmodi ratione nitatur proximum a peccato revocare et ad officium virtu- 
temque traducere ? " Is education anything else? Therefore [!] every individual has 
the right to educate. 

Here, in our humble opinion, Father Holaind was much too lenient 
to the learned Doctor. If we are to understand by instruction or 
teaching the formation of the mind or any kind of " methodical and 
continuous " communication of knowledge, as Dr. Bouquillon (pamph. 
I, p. 8) defines education with Mons. Sauve, we deny that any indi- 
vidual may exercise such a function towards any other individual 
without that individual's consent, or towards any child without the 
consent of such child's parent, or of the person who takes the place 
of parent in regard to such child — except in the case in which charity 
or mercy demands it. The spiritual works of mercy, the Doctor 
should know, can be exercised only towards the miserable, who alone 
are objects of mercy. But the right of aiding the miserable does not 
confer the right to teach in the scholastic sense. 

This argument [of Father Holaind, quoth the Doctor] reveals a sad confusion, about 
H'^ht and the exercise of a right. I have the right to practice medicine, but I may not 
and cannot be a physician except to those who will put themselves under my care. Just 
so I have the right toAeach and to educate; but 1 can exercise the right only on those 
who have the goodness to take me as master. If the client I solicit is sui Juris, his con- 
sent suffices to give ej^ect to my right : thus the founder of a religious community gets 
his right made practical, the right, namely, to give a religious education to those who 
associate with him, by their consent. If my would-be client is a child, I tnust needs get 
the consent of his parents ( Italics ours). Is my position plain ? Must I say in so many 
words, that when I assert for every individual the right to teach, I do not assert the 
yight to take pupils by the collar and teach them willy nilly ? My right to teach does not 
imply a right to force myself on others (Italics ours), but does imply an obligation o;i the 
part of others not to hinder my giving education to those who are willing to accept my 
services as a teacher (p. 16). 

There is no confusion here between right and the exercise of a right; 
for the simple reason that here no /vX''/^/ exists, as we have shown (supra 
p. 13) unless a negative right, such as I have to dispose of my neighbor's 
property — i. e., no one has the right to prevent me from justly acquiring 
it, if my neighbor is ready to part with it. We wonder the Doctor did 



Right and Duty of Pareiits and Church. 93, 

not perceive that the concessions here made completely undermine his 
position. A right which can in all cases be lawfully frustrated is no 
right; but the right of the individual to teach, as the Doctor now admits, 
is confined to those who " are willing to accept his services as a teach- 
er"; and, "if his client is a child he must get the consent of his parents." 
Therefore the parents can justly and efficaciously frustrate the right 
of all individuals either to teach or to educate their children, as long 
as these are minors; and the pupil himself, if he is sui juris can do 
the same. Consequently, the individual has no right ^to educate ex- 
cept what he receives from parents, or pupils. And as the Doctor 
bases the right of corporations on the rights of individuals these too 
must receive their rights from parents and pupils. Again, since the 
right of the state to educate is based by the Doctor on the right of cor- . 
porations, it follows with the same logical necessity that the state can- 
not educate without the consent of parents, or of pupils, if these are sin 
juris. Consequently, the state has no inherent right to educate, or to 
force any system, plan or programme of education, on parents or 
pupils. But if we add, with Leo XIII., that the right of parents to 
educate their children is inalienable, and indefeasible, that it can 
neither be extinguished, nor absorbed by the state, * what becomes of 
the right of the state to educate ? Verily, the Doctor has here made 
easy work for his opponents. 

We dismiss the long discussion of the rights of corporations tacked 
on to this argument (pp. 17-19) as impertinent to the subject. 

V. Right and Duty of Parents and Church. 

In the following two sections on the Right, Mission {duty), and 
Authority of parents and of the Church the Doctor does little more than 
repeat what he said in his first pamphlet, giving greater emphasis to 
some passages, and trying to show the unfair dealing of his critics. 

I. Here, as in his first pamphlet, in treating of the right of parents, 
the Doctor supplies an invincible argument that the state has not the right 
to educate; but he has not the heart to draw the inevitable conclusion 
contained in his premises. He admits that " the rights of parents 
are sacred and must be respected "; that the duty of parents is 
"paramount"; that parents " can never lose " their authority (p, 19 
-20); but, instead of concluding: therefore the state cannot arrogate 

' Officio sanctissimo. 22. Dec. 1887: Rerum novarum, May 15, 1891. 



94 Siippleinent. — Dr. Boiiqiiilloiis Rejoinder. 

to itself the right to educate, he feels justified only in asserting that, 
" if the state establishes public schools, it is bound to take account 
of the reasonable wishes of parents; and allow them a legitimate 
share in the carrying on of such schools." He also expresses his 
preference for municipal schools "as in this country." We fear the 
Doctor is but poorly informed on the nature of the public school 
system of this country; else he would not have implied that the mu- 
nicipal system is prevalent in these states. But what if the majority 
of the municipality itself is agnostic, or indifferent, or even hostile to 
religion ? Have Christian parents any guarantee for the moral and 
religious education of their children by such municipality, more than 
by the state or federal government ? To these questions the Doctor 
has no answer. 

2. The Doctor (p. 20-21) offers the following apology for his scant 
treatment of the right, duty and authority of the Church in his first 
pamphlet: 

When I came to treat this part, I found that I had either to spread over many pages, 
if Iwished to be complete, or confine myself to the mere statement of general principles 
and indication of principal proofs. This latter alternative was imposed on me by the 
very nature of my work. 

Does this justify the omissions we pointed out (supra pp. 8, 47, 49, 
51, 53, sq.) ? May these objections be disposed of by the remark: 
Quod abundat non vitiat? We leave this to the judgment of the reader. 

The discussion of the principles of the natural law and of the rela- 
tion of Church and state to these fundamental moral truths (pp. 22- 
23) we have characterized as impertinent to the subject, yet we can- 
not refrain from drawing the attention of the reader to some of those 
principles which are directly opposed to the Doctor's main thesis. 
Thus, for instance, (p. 22 /-'.): — 

The precepts of the natural law may be known naturally by the very light of reason, 
as St. Paul teaches in his epistle to tlie Romans. But they are known more iully and 
perfectly by the light of revelation ; for revelation is necessary ifi order that these pre- 
cepts should be known by all, easily, certainly, and tuithont any mixture of error (Italics 
ours) : tit ab omnibus expedite, Jii ma certitiuline et nullo admixto errore cognosci possint. 
(Cone. Vat.). 

Therefore the precepts of the moral law cannot be known by all 
with certainty, etc., except through the teaching of the Church, the 
infallible expounder of revelation. Now, if God embodied those 
natural truths in His revelation, and instituted an infallible teaching 



Right and Duty of Parents andCliurch. 95 

office to explain them, it is certainly not His will that they should be 
further taught by a fallible and erring school of ministers, comission- 
ers, or superintendents of education. 

In passing let us note the ambiguity of the following proposition 
(p. 22 ^.): — 

The state, which is bound to sanction the principles ot moral law, is consequently 
bound to inculcate them on the members of society ; the Church has a similar duly, but 
of a higher order, in regard to the faithful; for these two authorities have both the mis- 
sion to procure the moral education of men, though each one at a different point of view 
(Italics ours). 

That the state is bound to "sanction the principles of the moral law " 
by rewards and punishments we grant; but that it is bound directly to 
inculcate these principles, otherwise than by laws and judgments, we 
deny. That the state has any direct mission to procure the " moral 
education of men " as we understand it in the question on hand, is false; 
for as the reverend Doctor " was taught by his regretted master, Car- 
dinal Franzelin, in his treatise de divina traditione et scriptura (ed. I., p. 
no) " "the supernatural moral order comprehends the natural moral 
order" (Rejoinder pp. 21-22). Therefore in the supernatural order 
in which by divine goodness, we exist, it is the business of the Church 
{and, of course, of parents by commission of the Church) to teach this 
supernatural order. Hence we must conclude that in the supernatural 
order the state's "occupation's gone," as far as the teaching of morality 
is concerned, unless we admit a " morale civique " or " independente," 
or'a merely secular or natural morality — which the Doctor as well as 
ourselves repudiates. For merely natural morality, which abstracts 
from the supernatural end of man, is according to the words of Leo 
Xin., {Hitmanuni genus cited by the Doctor, footnote p. 23), '■'■civic, 
free and independent'' morality. * 

Moreover, we draw attention to the following words of Dr. Bou- 
quillon which lead to the same conclusion: " // is impossible to sep- 
arate either politics from morality or morality from religion " (p. 22, f). 

1 Mundi enim opifex idemque providus gubernator Deus : lex Eeterna naluralem or- 
dinem conservari jubens, peiturbari vetans ; ullimits hominut?i finis multo excelsior 
rebus humanis extra hac mundaria hospitia const/tutus : hi /antes, hcec principia sunt 
iotiusjustiticB et honestatis . . . . Et sane disciplina morum, quae Massonum familiaa pro- 
batur unice, et qua informari adolescentium jetatem contendunt oportere. ea est quam 
ctvica?n nominant et soluiam ac liberatn ; scilicet in qua opinio nulla sit religionis 
inclusa. 



g3 Siippleinefit. — Dr. Bouquilion's Rejoinder. 

Finally we may be permitted to say that the Doctor might have' 
spared the " final remark " (p. 23, 11. 14-20). His opponents have 
given some thought to all those bearings of the "natural moral truths " 
— upon traditionalism and upon the salvation of the heathen. 

VI. Dr. Bouquillon's Attitude towards Neutral Schools. 

Here we may be allowed a remark which strikes us as in justice due 
to Dr. Bouquillon particularly after reading his second pamphlet. It 
has been asserted by some critics of the Doctor's first pamphlet, that 
that publication was intended as a plea for the American secular pub- 
lic school. There is nothing, we believe, farther from the truth. No 
word of the Doctor's can be interpreted in favor of secular, neutral or 
mixed education. In his second pamphlet he emphatically repudiates- 
this construction of his teaching, and it is but fair to give him credit 
for it. He says (p. 4): — 

Neither was it my purpose to speak .^^/r^ifJ-J.? and at length of the obligation of parents- 
to entrust their children to worthy masters and support good schools. Such obligation 
is of the domain of practical morals, and has been so often defined by compeient au- 
thority that I might be dispensed from passing my opinion on it. And notwithstand- 
ing, have I not expressed my conviction on this very point most unmistakably, since 
more than once I have asserted in the pamphlet (pp. 10, 20) that parents have not the 
ri^ht to give to their children an education detrimental to faith and morals, that in the 
presence of a system of education indifferent to religion the Church has the duty of estab- 
lishing Christian schools (Italics ours) ? 

Again (p. 20): — 

I have asserted and proved (pp. 10, 16) that it is the duty of parents to give their 
children education, not education of an indifferent, vague kind, but a civic and Catholic 
education, that will make the children into good citizens and good Christians ; that this 
parental duty is strict and paramount (Italics ours), though by no means a duty of com- 
mutative justice, ^ as Father Holaind would hold ^^p. 10, hne 35). Why, then, does he 
[Fatht-r Holaind] quote against me (p. 16), the decree of the Holy See and the American 
Hierarchy on neutral schools ? 2 Where is the word of mine contrary to those decrees ? 

The same is implied (page 34) where the Doctor admits that " the 
neutral school is condemned on principle." There he also makes the 
admission that " the non-Christian state is not qualified to exercise 
over Christians its rights in the matter of education," supposing, of 

1 We should like to see the Doctor's proof against Father Holaind, that the duty of 
parents to give the necessary education to their children is not one oi commutative justice. 

2 " The decrees of the Holy See and the American Hierachy " were quoted by Father 
Holaind, not against ih.Q Doctor, but, as by ourselves, to supply a grave omission in the 
Doctor's pamphlet. 



"fhe Impregnable Argument. 97 

course, all the time that the state has the proper right to educate^ 
And again (p. 34-35):— 

Let it be understood that I am here speaking of the establishment of schools by the 
state, not of the tise of such schools by the parents (Italics ours). Be the state reprehensi- 
ble or not in establishing schools negatively indifferent, more or less dangerous, the 
duties of Catholic parents remain those indicated in the Third Council of Baltimore, n. 
198, and in the Instruction given by the Holy See, 24 Nov., 1875. 

The Doctor then goes on to quote the Instruction of the Holy See- 
to the American hierarchy. We wish to put this on record not only 
for the sake of Dr. Bouquillon's opponents and in fairness to Dr., 
Bouquillon himself, but chiefly for the sake of his friends. These 
have no right to cite him in favor of neutral schools in any shape 
or form, or for any kind of state education which is not Catholic 
to the fullest extent. His friends have, therefore, been more cruel 
to Dr. Bouquillon than have been his adversaries; and they have done, 
him real and deep injustice by invoking his authority in favor of any 
system, or plan, or compromise, that would in any way interfere with 
the fully Catholic character of the school. 

We cannot, therefore, conceal our astonishment at the fact that,, 
while the Doctor so keenly resents what he considers unfairness orr^ 
the part of his opponents, he is so patient of this injustice done to» 
him by his friends. We sincerely hope that his next rejoinder will be: 
directed not against his opponents, but against those who abuse his- 
authority in their endeavors to secularize our Catholic parochial 
schools: ab amicis meis libera me! 

VII. The Impregnable Argument. 

In reasserting the right of the state to educate (p. 24 sq.) the- 
Doctor defends, first, his " impregnable," argument, and, secondly, 
his authorities, we have treated these two points so fully in the body 
of our essay that we might well be excused from further noticing 
them here. . 

"Father Holaind (p. 15) criticizes the major, the minor [of the 
Doctor's " impregnable " argument] and finds that the conclusion 
does not follow from the premises." So do we (supra p. 15 sq.); and we 
come to the same conclusion; so do numerous other critics; and all 
find the argument faulty. Major, minor and conclusion, as we have 
seen, must be considerably modified. The Doctor says he made the: 



98 Siipplc7iif}it. — Dr. Boiiqiiilloiis Rejoinder. 

necessary qualifications and printed them in Italics in various parts of 
his pamphlet. Very true; but why did the Doctor not make the 
necessary qualifications here (pamphlet I. p. 12), where they were 
needed to prevent the false conclusion: that the state had the right to 
teach., i. e., to educate. And why does the Doctor shift his position now ? 
His position was that the state has the right special a?td proper to edu- 
cate, i. e., the right of establishing schools., appointing teachers, prescribing 
methods and programmes of study., in the same way as it governs and judges, 
viz.; through delegates fitted for such functions. He now takes his stand 
with Prof. Moulart, who has not a single word to justify the assump- 
tion, that he attributes to the state the right to educate. 

Meanwhile, I maintain what I have said on this point, and I repeat it, making my 
own tlie words of Prof. Moulart, of the University of Louvain. " Civil instruction, after 
rehgious instruction, is the first means of civilizing a people. The first duty of the pub- 
lic power is \.o favor and propagate knozvledge. The state is bound \o promote scientific, 
literary, technical or industrial training, to safeguard its subjects against fraud and injus- 
tice by providing means (preceding Italics ours) whereby they can know persons and 
things, and know the laws that regulate relations between persons, Xht ejtjoyment and 
use of things and the exercise of rights." (p. 26). 

Is there a word in this extract from Prof. Moulart to imply that 
education strict atid proper hy the state is a legitimate means of procuring 
the common good, or that education is an inherent right of the state ? 
The Professor does insist on " civil instruction " but not necessarily by 
the state; he does insist on the duty of the state to "favor," " propa- 
gate," " promote/' " safeguard," " provide means " for the diffusion of 
useful knowledge; but where is the 7'ight to educate? 

In fact Dr. Bouquillon himself no longer insists, in his conclusion, 
on the right of the state to educate j but only on the right of " giving 
voluntary aid to teachers " and " establishing schools," if it " thinks 
necessary the establishment of schools. '^ But he immediately submits 
that this implies " education " as well as '' teaching "; and proves this 
by the authority of St. Thomas and Suarez (ibid.). 

But, insists the Rev. Father, this proves at most that the state can give teaching, but 
not education. Excuse me, it proves both (Italics ours). Morality is not less necessary than 
knowledge. Does not St. Thomas teach that there is no virtue the acts of which the 
state may not prescribe, and Suarez, that " the end of civil law is the temporal happi- 
ness of the commonwealth, which cannot be obtained without the observance of all the 
moral virtues; hence, the civil law may prescribe m the domain of all the moral 
virtues."! 

^ I-II q. 96, a. 3. " Nulla est virtus de cujus actibus lex prsecipere non possit." De 



The Impregnable Afgmnent. 99 

Now, we beg the Rev. Doctor, to excuse us. This argument of his 
proves neithei'- the right of teaching nor the right of educating. We 
have already shown from the Doctor's own teaching that the state cannot 
teach morality. St. Thomas and Suarez in the passages cited do not 
speak of teaching but of law, precept and punishment. They assert 
that the civil power can legislate and, of course, also judge and punish 
in the matter of all the moral virtues (e. g., punish drunkenness, 
theft and public disorder, enforce military service, if necessary, 
&c.). Both these authors, however, take very good care to add, that 
the civil power cannot enforce all acts of all virtues, as, for instance, 
virginity and other acts of perfection that are only of counsel. ^ Whence 
the Doctor should have concluded, that the state has no right to 
educate or to enforce any certain kind of education. 

And immediately, after thus confounding teaching with governing, 
legislating and judging once more, the Doctor rates Father Holaind for 
noticing such a trifling mistake in his first pamphlet. 

To this argument [that is, the "impregnable"] I added a cursory remark of minor 
importance, that the state necessarily teaches, if not in schools, at least in its laws and 
juridical verdicts. The Rev. Father answers that legislating and judging are not quite 
the same thing as holding school, I knew that. In order that no one might impute to 
me so childish a naivete, I wrote, p. I2, " that the civil power does necessarily teach 
in one way ot anot/ier" when it legislates and judges. The Rev. Father might very 
well have passed so secondary an observation, but he is wrong in calling it metaphorical. 
It is not in a metaphorical, but in a very proper sense, that divine law in Scripture is 
called Lux., Luce^na, Liiinen.^ and that St. Basil says, Lex doct?ix et niagistra (p. 26-27). 

Here the Doctor clears himself of one " childish naivete " and falls 
into another, by maintaining that education as applied to governing 
and judging is not metaphorical, and that the examples alleged by him 
are not metaphorical but employed in their proper sense. When the 
Doctor exclaims (p. 42): "Was the light [i. e., of his first pamphlet] so 
dazzling that it hurt the eyes of some [of his opponents] ? " Does he 
understand light in its proper, not in a metaphorical, sense ? If 

Leg.., lib. III., c. 12, n. 8. " Finis juris civilis est felicitas vera naturalis poiiticse civita- 
lis ; hsec autem obtineri non potest sine observaniia omnium virtutum moralium ; ergo 
in omnibus potest prsecipere jus civile." 

' Non tamen de omnibus actibus omnium virtutum lex humana praecipit, sed solum 
de illis qui ordinabiles sunt ad bonum commune. — S. Thorn. Ibid. 

Dicendum est leges civiles non posse fieri de omnibus actibus omnium et singularum 

virtutum Non enim potest prsecipi virginitas, etiamsi optimus actus virtutis sit, et 

idem est de aliis actibus, qui proprie dicuntur consilioram. Suarez, Ibid. n. 1 1. 



lOO Supplement. — Dr. Bouquillon s Rejoinder. 

so, we must furthermore consult, not the divine, but the oculist. 
(Cf. supra p. i8). 

VIII. Facts and Documents. 

The historical arguments adduced (pp. 27-29) prove nothing, as we 
have shown (supra p. 55 sq.), because they suppose a union, or agree- 
ment, between Church and state. The same may be said of the appeal 
to the German Centre party (p. 5-6). We have had a fair opportunity 
of observing the policy of the German Catholic Centre for the last 
twenty years, and we have followed events in Germany with some 
interest. Now, if we rightly understand the tendency of this illus- 
trious Catholic party, it is this: io secure to the Church that freedom which 
is guaranteed by the constiiutio7i. But, according to the constitutions of 
the various German states there is an understanding between Church 
and state regulated by concordats, or agreements, which grant to 
the state the right to the control of schools, while they secure to the 
Church the fullest liberty to superintend the education in her own 
schools. In Germany each denomination has its own separate 
schools, established and supported by the government. Compulsory 
education, like many other paternal provisions of German legislation, 
is a fait accompli, and does not lie within the programme of the 
Centre party. For the present they are satisfied with freedom. of 
education as guaranteed by the constitution; and, as we hold with 
von Hammerstein and other Catholic authors, compulsory education, 
if enforced with the consent of the parents and of the Church, contains 
nothing objectionable. For the rest, the policy of the Centre party 
has been strictly in accord with the principles of eminent German 
Catholic publicists, as represented by von Hammerstein, Stokl, 
Cathrein, Lehmkuhl and others; who are all the most staunch defend- 
ers of parental right against state aggression. 

We must protest against the insinuation (p. 27 text and foot-note) 
that Father Holaind attributes any further virtue to the " oil that 
shone on Charlemagne's brow " than that it was symbolic of the 
union of Church and state and of the sacredness of the charge en- 
trusted to kings — not to speak of the general effects of the sacramen- 
tals of the Church. All Father Holaind says is that " the brow of 
Charlemagne is glossy with the sacred oil." But the Doctor has 
already proved himself a bad exponent of metaphors. The learned 



Facts and Documents. loi 

foot-note (p. 27) we must, therefore, regard as altogether superfluous 
and uncalled for. 

The Doctor appeals to the letter of Leo XIII to the Cardinal vicar 
June 26, 1878. But to no purpose. The Pope here deals with exist- 
ing facts. If instead of neutral schools the municipal government of 
Rome had established Catholic elementary schools and put them under 
the direction of the Church, who would deny its right to do so ? This, 
as we often repeated, would not imply the exercise of the right of 
education, but only the right and duty of aiding and promoting 
education. But to establish neutral schools for so-called civic edu- 
cation and to control these to the exclusion of the influence of the 
Church and of the parents interested, implies the right to educate. 
This is precisely what the Pope condemned in that very letter — the 
establishment of schools in which religion and Christian morality are 
separated from secular teaching (v. supra p. 33). Therefore the 
Pope implicitly denies the right of the municipality of Rome, as then 
and now constituted, to educate the Catholic children of Rome; 
whereas if said municipality were Christian and, in accord with the 
Church, founded and conducted Christian schools, the Pope would 
probably have sanctioned and lauded its efforts, though it was but the 
creation of a band of robbers. 

We must likewise protest against the construction put on the 
Pope's teaching in the Encyclical Immortale Dei (p. 29 11. 15-22). 

In the Encyclical Immortale Dei, Leo XIII makes a strong appeal to Catholics to 
take an active part in the politics of their country, even wrhere the constitution is 
rationalistic, and does not recognize the Church. He advises them especially not to 
neglect municipal politics. Nov7, why ? Please attend : because schools are of the ju-ris- 
diction of municipalities (Italics ours), and Catholics should not neglect this most power- 
ful means of assuring to their offspring a good education. 

The passage referred to literally translated is this: '^t is also of 
importance for the public welfare, prudently to devote attention to 
the administration of municipal affairs and herein to use the o-reatest 
care and endeavor that provision be made on the part of the munici- 
pality (publice) for the religious and moral instruction of the youth 
in a manner becoming Christians." ' Here there is not a word to 

1 " lUud etiam publico salutis interest, ad rerum urbanarum administrationem con- 
ferre sapienter operam, in eaque studere maxime et efficere, ut adolescentibus ad 
religionem, ad probos mores informandis ea ratione, qua sequum est Christianis, pub- 
lice consultum sit." 



102 Supplement. — Dr Bouquillori s Rejoinder. 

imply that " schools are of the jurisdiction of municipalities." But Chris- 
tian men are exhorted (since the municipal governments actually in 
most places do control the schools) to see that such provisions are 
made as may save the Christian character of the schools. To this 
the reader will " please attend." 

Finally, the concordat of August i8, 1886, with the Prince of Mon- 
tenegro, proves what all concordats prove, that the Church may cede 
some of her rights, in regard to education and similar departments of 
her jurisdiction, to the temporal power, whether the latter be vested 
in a Catholic, Protestant, schismatic, or infidel. 

IX. Dr. Bouquillon's Authorities Once More. 

Having thus endeavored to defend his " impregnable " argument 
and the historical reasons by which he tried to back it up, the Doctor 
comes to the defence of his authorities. He says (p. 29-30): — 

Finally, I brought (p. 14) to the support of my thesis the authority of some serious 
pubhcists of the day. I selected from Austria and Germany two Jesuits, Costa-Rossetti 
and Hammerstein ; from France, Mgr. Sauv^, who, for his knowledge of the positive 
science, and for the accuracy of his judgment, is recognized as a man of the first order ; 
from Italy, I chose Cardinal Zigliara, a Dominican. I might have added others; I 
regret, especially, the omission of the illustrious Bishop of Mayence, Mgr. Ketteler. 
But these were surely sufficient. 

We have put the teaching of these " serious publicists " before our 
readers at full length, even at the risk of trespassing pn their patience 
and on the kindness of our publishers, giving not only those passages 
which were manifestly against the Doctor's position, but also those 
that seem to favor him. Now we have only to refer the reader to 
those extracts (supra pp. 18-43). 

The Doctor regrets the omission of the late Mons. von Ketteler 
on the list of his authorities. As we have taken the liberty of sup- 
plying in these pages much graver omissions of the reverend Doctor 
we shall also cheerfully make up for this rather pardonable over- 
sight on his part. 

First, Monsignor von Ketteler most forcibly emphasizes and un- 
compromisingly insists upon the inalienable and inviolable rights of 
parents and of the Church. Secondly, Monsignor von Ketteler 
strongly insists on the organic union of Church and state, and con- 
siders everything that would in any way loosen this union as destruc- 
tive and dangerous. These rights safeguarded, and this union sup- 



Dr. Bouquillon's Authorities Once More. 103, 

posed, Monsignor von Ketteler, in accordance with the positive law 
of Germany, and in accordance with the opinion of the positive Ger- 
man law school (he cites Stahl, who is refuted by Hammerstein, 
Cathrein, Rossetti, Th. Meyer, &c.), grants the state the right to 
enforce compulsory education, or prescribe a minimum of elementary 
instruction.' Under such conditions, we believe that few Catholic 
writers would object to a reasonable and moderate provision for 
enforcing a limited amount of instruction. 

Such is the doctrine of Ketteler. It practically differs very little 
from that of Hammerstein and others, although Ketteler bases his 
opinions on the teaching of a school of jurists which Hammersteim 
and Catholic writers generally reject. 

The practical question for us in iVmerica, however, as I have re- 
peated more than once, is not whether the state considered in itself 
can enforce compulsory education or not; or whether a given state 
with the consent of parents and of the Church can do so; but whether 
2. purely secular state like ours (call it Christian or non-Christian), can 
impose a system of compulsory education, or enjoin a certain plan,, 
programme, minimum, or standard, of obligatory instruction on the 
children of Christian parents. We have been unable to find a solu- 
tion for this problem in the works of Mons. von Ketteler, all excellent 
though they be. Mons. von Ketteler was an eminently practical as 
well as learned man. He wrote German for Germans, as Mon. Suave 
writes French for Frenchmen; and we should endeavor to write Ameri- 
can for Americans. 

For the rest, what Bishop Ketteler thought of the existing system 
of compulsory education in Germany, which has been of late emphat- 
ically commended by pronounced admirers of Dr. Bo\iquillon, ^ may 
be concluded from the following words: " A system of education 
such as modern liberalism seeks to establish, as an independent state 
institution, divorced from famil}'' and Church — with direct compulsion 
in the elementary schools, and indirect cofnpulsion in the higher schools, in as 
much as the attendance of state schools is necessary as a qualification 

1 Cf. Freiheit, Auctoritat und Kirche, 4 ed. Maniz 1862 pp. 182-219. 

* Cf. Norttiwestern Chronicle January i, 1892, letter dated Berlin (?). The Church 
Progress of St. Louis positively asserts that said letter was concocted in Baltimore, 
for the secular press — manifestly in the interest of the cause which Dr. Bouquillonj 
champions. See Progress January 16, 1892. 



104 Supplement. — Dr. Boiiquillon's Rejoinder. 

for public offices — is the most destructive and degrading intellectual and 
moral thraldom. . . . The conduct of the emperor [Juhan the Apostate] 
is a gentle persecution compared with that which is planned by 
modern liberalism against Christianity; for at that time compulsory 
education had not yet been heard of. Julian would only deprive the 
Christians of higher education; but the state school in the sense of 
modern liberalism is an intellectual prison, into which the children of 
Christian parents are cast, to rob them of their Christian faith."' 

We can, therefore, safely say, after examining every single authori- 
ty the Doctor has produced that not one of them sustains him in his 
main thesis that the state has the right to teach, i. e., to educate. And 
yet the Doctor grows wroth with those critics who but insinuate what 
we have proved to evidence. He says: — 

Father Holaind slyly insinuates (p. 4) that these references deserve a relative confi- 
<Jence. Father E. A. Higgins, S.J., is bolder; he plainly tells the readers of the Catk- 
<olic Nctus that he has carefully looked up my references, and that of all the vi^riters 
<juoted by me not one gives to the state the right of education as I have formulated it, 
that is, the right to establish schools, pay teachers, prescribe programmes ; not a single 
■one even holds my opinion to be probable. Evidently some one does not know how to 
read, or is lying to the public [!!!]• That some one is either Father E. A. Higgins, 
S.J., or Dr. Bouquillon. As no one is judge in his own cause, I produce the docu- 
ments and appeal to the public. Let its verdict be Father Higgins' punishment or mine 
<p. 30). 

Father Higgins, who is the chief object of the Doctor's resent- 
ment, has promptly been heard from in his own defence. In an open 
letter to the Doctor printed in the Catholic News Jan. 21, 1892, he 
says: — 

" You complain that my criticism was unfair. My dear Doctor, I 
do not admit that charge. It was not unfair to show some of the 
■weak points of your argument. That was all I did. I did not pre- 
tend to do more. I did not misrepresent your argument. An im- 
partial reader would not say so. You object that I will not allow as 
upholding your thesis a single one of the authorities you so ostenta- 
tiously array on your side. You resent that sort of criticism. Well, 
•dear Doctor, it is a question of fact. The best of these publicists, 
such as Jansen, Hammerstein, Costa-Rossetti, Zigliara and Taparelli, 
have already been quoted against you, as denying to the state in it- 
self the right to educate. I ventured to say that, so far as I could 

• L. c. p. 215-216. 



Dr. Bouqiiilloii s Authorities Once More. 105 

■discover, not one of your authorities directly supports the thesis that 
the state has the right to educate. I say so still." 

" I have a right to insist that you use the word educate in the or- 
dinary acceptation of the term. I have a right to insist that you 
continue to use it in the same meaning wherever it occurs: in the 
same meaning in your Rejoinder as in your first pamphlet. If you 
are pleased to change its meaning now, and to take the word in 
a loose sense for ' organizing schools^ paying teachers, prescribing pro- 
grammes,' which can all be done by delegated authority, why did 
you not so define yourself in your pamphlet ? You spoke there of 
authority in se; of state authority over all schools. You cite au- 
thors to prove that the state can provide instruction and schools 
according to the wishes and needs of the people, as Hammerstein 
puts it. Who denies that ? Does that prove your thesis that the 
state in itself has primarily and by its own authority the right to edu- 
cate? Are you to have the privilege of playing fast and loose with 
the most important terms ? And if you choose to shift your ground, 
why should I be guilty of the same confusion ? I challenged the 
assertion that the great publicists you named, sustained you in the 
thesis that the state in itself, of its own authority, has the right to 
£ducate. Those I have named above do not maintain that thesis. 
You have not proved that they do. You have proved a different 
thing, which was not in question. They admit that the state can aid 
parents in the work of education by providing instruction and schools 
and managing the same according to the wishes and needs of the 
parents. No one denies that. But that was not your thesis." 

Dr. Bouquillon, however, completely refutes himself in the suc- 
ceeding paragraph. While endeavoring to prove to the public that 
it is Father E. A. Higgins, S.J., who "does not know how to read, or 
is lying to the public,^' he manages to establish with perplexing 
evidence that it is somebody else who *' does not know how to read, 
or is lying to the public." We cite his argument in full, to avoid 
even the possibility of unfairness, adding our own Italics to his. 

I have quoted Costa- Rossetti, Hammerstein, Sauv6, Zigliara. Here are the texts. 
Costa-Rossetti, Inst. Eih. et jtiris nat.^ th. 175, p. 691, ist ed. : " Auctoritas civilis 
quidem scJiolas ftmdare et a se fundatas dirigere potest', sed per se prohibere nequit ne 
cives ipsi scholas etiam publicas erigant, ab ipsis erectas ordinent et dirigant, quin ta- 
men absolutam docendi libertatem concedere possit." — Hammerstein, De Ecdesia et 
Statu, 1st ed., ii, 2, p. 98: " Concedimus ipsius (status) esse scholas ftmdare, si opus 



io6 Siipplejnent. — Dr. Bouquillon' s Rejoinder, 

stt, ut parentes meliorem nauciscantur opportunitatem ad liberos instruendos ; " item- 
iii. 3, p. 146 : Si-Iipl(€ publico: turn ab Ecclesia turn a potestate civili institiii posstmt ; " 
again, iii, p. 1S2: " Negare non potest, statui jura qujedam circa liberorum educa- 
tionem et scholas competere. Ipsius enim est, supplere familiam. Hinc primo par- 
entibus media offere potest, ut melius et efficacius educationi provideant. Quod facit 
scholas fitndando et dotando secundum parentum necessitates et vota." — Sauv6, Questions 
Socialcs, c. 10, p. 269-271 : E'Etat ade lui-meme le droit d^ enseigner . . . ce qu'il est 
licite de communiquer a d'autres. Oui, I'etat ale droit d^oiivrir des ecoles, qui, sans 
prejudicier aux droits de I'Eglise, ^ ceux des families et des individus, peuvent etre 
necessaires on titiles au bien social, dont I'etat est juge. . . . Entciidii de la sorte, [i. e., 
ouvrir des 6coles . . . necessaires ou utiles. . .] le droit d'enseigner peut-il ^tre raison- 
nablement denie a I'etat ? Ne serait-ce pas lui refuser le droit de communiquer a d'autres 
ce qui est bon et utile, et meme d'accomplir ce qui pent etre pour lui un devoir ? . . . 
Ma th^se est done celle-ci: Le pouvoir civil a ei€ investi par Dieu du droit de procurer 
le bien cummun temporel, et par la meme de favoiiser et d^ ouvrir au besoin des ecoles 
qui contribuent a ce bien. . . .La these opposee h. la notre qui refuserait a I'etat 
tout droit d'enseigner [i. e., de favoriser et d'ouvrir aubesoin des ecoles] ne nous parait 
pas probable." — Zigliara, Phil. Mot., lib. ii, c. i, a. 5, n. 7 : " Statui jus simul et of- 
ficium m&sse pivctcrandi media aptiora ad educationem turn infellectualem turn nioralem,. 
negat profecto nemo. Cum enim in societatem civilem formandam familiss conveniant, 
ut auxilia a communitate habeant, quse solas aut nullo modo aut nonnisi imperfecte 
in promptu habere possunt, necesse est ut de jure et officio socialis auctoritatis sit ilia 
media aptiora suppeditare." — Cavagnis, Instit.jur. publ. eccl., iii, n. 89, p. 59 : " Fac- 
ultatem statui civili scholas instituendi nemo unquam denegavit." 

Let the reader compare these extracts which have been carefully 
culled by the Doctor and taken out of their context to support his 
thesis with the same as we have rendered them in translation, care- 
fully noting the context and supplying those passages of these authors, 
in which they expressly or implicitly deny the state the right to edu- 
cate; and then let him judge between Dr, Bouquillon and Father 
Higgins. For the rest, we have only to read those extracts them- 
selves to perceive that not a single one of the authors cited attributes 
to the state the right to educate. They do vindicate to the state the 
right to found schools, where useful or necessary; they attribute to the 
state certain rights in regard to education, — to offer suitable means, or 
the right to teach in the sense of commitnicaling lawful knowledge, open- 
ing and favoring schools (Sauve). But not a single passage is to be 
found in all these authors to imply that the state has the right to 
educate in the common acceptation of this term. 

And yet Dr. Bouquillon, after reviewing this array of authorities, 
who are all against him, goes on to vent his wrath on Father Higgins 
(P- 31)- 



Dr. Boiiquillon's Authorities Once More. 107 

Is comment needed? Let not Father E. A. Higgins say that those writers mean 
teachings not education: they speak of schools and, therefore, of [the means of] educa- 
tion, as well as teaching, and at any rate they use expressly the word edzicatmi [does 
this imply the right to educate ?]. Let not Father Higgins say that those writers allow 
no probability to my thesis ; it is to his they give no value whatsoever ! Hammer- 
stein and Costa-Rosselti did not even deign to discuss his opinion [ ! ! ] ; Sauve ex- 
pressly says it is not probable [ ! ! ! ] ; Cavagnis and Zigliara assert that nobody ever 
taught it [i. e., that the state has not the right to establish schools, and supply suitable 
means]. Let not Father Higgins hereafter say what he has said. But let me say that 
Father E. A. Higgins has given to the world an instance of audacious negation in the face 
of truth [ ! ] such as I have never met with. To break down my thesis he would make 
me a forger [ ! ! ]. I resent it. 

This specimen of controversy is not very creditable to the learned 
professor. This wriggling and shifting and juggling plainly shows 
the weakness of the Doctor's position, as does also his bad temper. 

This is the outcome of that great array of authorities quoted by Dr. 
Bouquillon for the theory that the state has the right to educate. They 
have vanished into thin air, and not one of them is found to support 
him in the moment of trial. And these are the very same authorities 
that formed the stock in trade of the panegyrists of state education in 
some portions of the so-called Catholic press of this country for the 
last twelve months and more. These, together with the theologians 
of the Vatican, are the authorities which were paraded in the New 
York Independent of June 4, 1 891, to prove to the American non- 
Catholic world a consensus of Catholic theologians in favor of state 
education as against the parochial school system enjoined on the 
Catholics of this country not only by the divine law, but also by the 
decrees of the Holy See, and by their own national conciliar legisla- 
tion. We were then solicited to examine and expose this fallacy. 
We did examine the authorities; but we persistently refused to publish 
the result of our investigation, until it became an imperative duty to 
do so. It seems to have been the disposition of a special providence 
that this entire arsenal should explode, not piecemeal in the hands 
of retailing newspaper writers, but altogether upon the head of the 
chief manufacturer. ^ 

' Strange conjectures have been expressed on this phenomenal literary performance of 
Dr. Bouquillon. The freest and boldest that we have seen in print is that of the re- 
viewer in the Civilta Cattolica (Jan. 2, 1892) who ventures to doubt the genuineness 
of the work, owing to the enormous difference between it and the Doctor's previous 
publications. " Infine," says the reviewer, " ci sia lecito di e«premere un dubbioche molte 
volte ci h venuto alia mente nel leggere questo opuscolo. E esso genuina opera di quello 



io8 Supplement . — Dr. BouquillorC s Rejoinder. 

AVhat, then, shall we say of the learned Doctor, who as he tells us 
(p. 41), has thus "taken his stand in the serene regions of science ? " 
Shall we judge him in his own words, and say: either he " does not 
know how to read, oris lying to the public ? " No; far be that from us! 
There is a mean; but the Doctor in the heat of his resentment did 
not see it. Dr. Bouquillon is not " lying to the public; " Dr. Bouquillon 
" does know how to read; " but Dr. Bouquillon did noi redid the mean- 
ing of those authors, but rather read his own views into them. 

X. A Fresh Onset. 

But the vials of the Doctor's wrath are not yet empty. Before we 
give him the floor against Father Higgins again, however, we shall 
submit to the reader the cause of his resentment in Father Higgins' 
own words, which run as follows: 

" Let us turn for a moment to the author's argument. Dr. Bouquil- 
lon is bound to prove that " the state has the right to educate." And 
this is how he proves it: ' Every individual,' he says, 'has by na- 
ture the right to teach. Now, an association or society has the same 
rights as an individual. Therefore the state, which is a civil society 
or association, has the right to educate.' " 

"To anyone acquainted with the rules of correct reasoning, this 
pretended argument must appear like a caricature. It sounds like a 
bad joke perpetrated upon the dull members of a class in logic. 
Why, Mr. Editor, even if the premises were true, the conclusion of 
this argument would not follow. The right to teach, even when it is 
established and acknowledged, does not imply or include the right to 
educate. The two things are entirely different. The learned Doctor 

stesso teologo moralista, la di cui Theologia nioralis fimdamentalis lodammo nel nostro 
primo quaderno del passato Agosto ? Si cosi e, bisogna pur che esclamiamo: "Qtmntum 
mutahis ab illo ! " 

Whoever the author or authors be, Dr. Bouquillon has undoubtedly made it his 
own by putting his name to it, and he is responsible for whatever it contains, and, in 
our opinion, also for most of the weapons which have been used in the campaign for 
the secularization of our Catholic schools long before the pamphlet : Education: to whom 
does it belong VJ2.1, given to the public. Let the. curious reader carefully compare the 
letter in the Independent referred to with Doctor Bouquillon's pamphlet, and then let 
him read Mons. Sauve's Questions, etc., c. 10, from which most of the raw material is 
borrowed; and let him judge whether or not these productions have been manufac- 
tured in the same workshop — whether or not "there is method in this madness." Cf. 
Bouquillon, Theol. mor. fund. Ed. II. p. 408, footnote 5 and p. 410, footnote i. 



A Fresh Onset. 109 

knows that the function of teaching or instructing is only a small ele- 
ment in the work of education, and parents may be justified in employ- 
ing as teachers or instructors certain persons, to whom they would not 
intrust the duty of educating their children. This then is the first blot 
in the argument. The conclusion does not follow from the premises. 

" But in the second place, the premises themselves are not true. It 
is not true that 'every individual has by nature the right to teach.' 
Nature gives no such right. There are many qualities requisite in 
the one who claims the right to teach. Some of these qualities are 
intellectual, some are moral; some pertain to knowledge, others to 
character, to tact, to virtue and to skill. Now, it is plain that nature 
does not bestow these on every individual. Doubtless every one has a 
right to qualify himself, if he can, to become a teacher; but this is quite 
a different thing from saying that ' every one has by nature the right to 
teach.' The first premise of Dr. Bouquillon's argument, then, is false. 

" The second proposition, ' Every society or association has the 
same right as the individual ' is so transparently untrue as to require 
no refutation. Individual rights are perfectly distinct from those 
of the family, the state and every other sort of organization. In- 
dividuals, as such, have many rights which societies have not, and 
in the nature of things cannot have. The usurpation by the state of 
the individual's rights constitutes tyranny or state despotism. To 
argue from the rights of the individuals to the rights of the state is 
to argue in favor of the most unlimited state absolutism. The prop- 
osition, therefore, that attributes to the state the rights of the indi- 
vidual, is not only false but pernicious." 

'* Both premises, then, being false, the argument of Dr. Bouquillon 
falls to the ground. And what shall we say of the logic which is ca- 
pable of constructing an argument on two false premises? Yet this is 
the foundation on which Dr. Bouquillon attempts to build up his 
thesis, namely, a conclusion that is not contained in the premises and 
a pair of premises which are themselves untrue. And this seems to 
be the best he can do to sustain, in behalf of the state, a right which 
every prominent American jurist has invariably attributed to the 
parent as among his natural and inalienable rights." 

Father Higgins criticizes the Doctor's argument as we do, as 
numerous other critics do, and points out the fallacy. We do not see 
that he treats the Doctor discourteously; he does not bid him " go to 



no Supplement. — Dr. Boiiqiiilloiis Rejoinder. 

school," as the Doctor asserts; he does not imply that he is untruthful 
or deceitful; he does not say that this is the Doctor's only argument; 
but he does insinuate that the argument is a fundamental one in the 
Doctor's theory. The latter, instead of answering his objection, as 
became a writer who was solely concerned for the truth of his doctrine, 
indulges in a strain of invective eloquence, which does little honor to 
him as a scholar and a controversialist. He says (p. 32-33): — 

Before entering upon the study of the right of the state to teach, page 11 of my pam- 
phlet, I threw out a previous consideration in these words : " We ask if the state has 
the special and proper right of teaching human Icnowledge. We say special and proper 
right, for there can be no question of a vague and general right; it were unreasonable 
to refuse to the state that which is granted to every legitimate association." Thereupon 
the Rev. Father E. A. Higgins, S.J., actually says that this previous remark is all the 
argument I have for the state's right, he puts this pretended argument in form, declares 
it a caricature and bids me go to school to learn logic. 

He has set up a man of straw and knocks him down. Again I appeal to the fair 
minded reader and beg him to give verdict. I have gone to school many years ago, to 
the school of Franzelin, Patrizzi, and Ballenni, S.J., to that same school I go as often 
as I can. But Father Higgins' school! No, I hie me not thither, it is a school of de- 
ceit. And now shall I tarry to justify — not my argument, I have done that just now in 
answering Father Holaind's objections to my syllogism — but a simple preliminary ob- 
servation made by the way in one line [We beg to remind the reader that Father Hig- 
gins' objection is directed not against this simple " observation," but against a theory 
to the defence of which the Doctor devotes many pages of his first pamphlet and of his 
rejoinder — i. e., that every individual, whether single or corporate, has the right to ed- 
ucate] ? I will merely say that I am not the first who has made this observation, and 
that it has been advanced in favor of the Church, especially in lands where the Church 
is not recognized as a perfect society. Father E. A. Higgins, S.J., whose name is at- 
tached to no great scientific work that I know, may apply to Mgr. Sauv6, author of first 
class works, the epithets with which he has honored me, may bid him go back to 
school! Here I drop the Rev. Father. May the reader excuse me for wasting on him 
so much of his and my time. I should not have stopped to answer his unfair criticism 
had it not been signed with a name, the religious affixes of which attached to the criti- 
cism credit in the eyes of Catholics. 

We shall let Father Higgins answer for himself. He says in the 
open letter already referred to: — 

" You are angry because I summarized a fundamental argument of 
yours and presented it in such a manner as to show its fiimsiness. It 
looked so easy to prove by a bit of philosophizing and generalizing 
that the state has the right to educate. Borrowing a sentiment of 
Mgr. Sauve's to the effect that everyone who has the ability has a natural 
right to teach those who may choose to listen to him, you changed 



A Fresh Onset. 1 1 1 

it into the general proposition that everybody has a natural right to 
teach. Now an association or society (you went on to say) has the 
same rights as an individual; and the state which is a moral person 
can fit itself to impart instruction as well as a physical person. There- 
fore (you concluded) the state has the the right to educate, which is 
your conclusion, not Mgr. Sauve's. This was substantially your ar- 
gument. I did not change it. I said it sounded like a caricature of 
reasoning. Here was a conclusion not contained in the premises. 
Even granting the premises true, this conclusion would not follow 
from them. And then, dear Doctor, I went on to show that the prem- 
ises themselves as you stated them, as you changed them from the 

• 
careful wording of Mgr. Sauve into your own general propositions, 

were not true. Now if you were satisfied that the premises furnished 
you by Mgr. Sauve were true, why did not you limit your conclusion 
to the same terms and say, ' Therefore the state has the right to teach '? 
Why ? Because your thesis required you to say ' Therefore the 
state has the right to educate; ' and you said it, though in saying it 
you introduced a fourth term into your syllogism. I ventured to call 
that manner of argument a caricature. A syllogism with four terms 
is not generally regarded in the schools of logic as a creditable per- 
formance. Does it become respectable in the school of Dr. Bouquillon? 
You grow angry over it as if I had constructed the false syllogism and 
palmed it off on you. The argument was not mine, it was yours. 
You were guilty of it, not I." 

'' And now, dear Doctor, in your Rejoinder, how do you explain 
away this choice specimen of reasoning ? You fall back on the words 
of Mgr. Suave, which you now quote in full with the saving clauses 
that make them essentially different from the propositions in your 
first pamphlet. But you take very good care to leave out altogether 
the obnoxious conclusion "Therefore the state \\dj& the right to educate" 
Why do you leave it out in the Rejoinder ? Because you see now how 
absurd it would be. And with this subterfuge before our eyes, you 
talk of a school of deceit. My dear Doctor, if there is a school of deceit in 
this matter, whose is it? Mine, which fairly stated your illogical ar- 
gument in full? Or yours, which slyly omits in the Rejoinder the 
offensive and illegitimate conclusion? If there is a school of deceit, 
whose is it? Yours, which practised the sophistry? Or mine, which 
simply exposed it? If there is a school of deceit 1 know not where to 



1 12 Supple jnent. — Dr. Bouqiiillons Rejoinder, 

look for it, unless it be where there is a constant juggling with the 
words teach, instruct, organize schools, and educate, as if the last were per- 
fectly equivalent to the others, whereas it stands for something es- 
sentially different. The right to educate implies jurisdiction. It 
involves authority and power to compel obedience and to impose the 
obligation of receiving instruction and training. That power belongs 
primarily by natural law and divine law to the parents. It cannot be 
taken from the parent except by usurpation and tyranny. To sur- 
render that right or power to the state is the betrayal of the most 
sacred right of parents." 

This is the case as between Dr. Bouquillon and Father Higgins; 
and it may be said to be the case between Dr. Bouquillon and 
ourselves, as we have raised the same objections to his argument. 
We have put both sides before the public. Let the reader judge 
for himself. Father Higgins needs no defence on our part. He is 
not unknown to the American reading public. He treated educa- 
tional and other social problems on the rostrum and in print, long 
before the name of Dr. Bouquillon was heard of on this side of the 
Atlantic; and if " his name is not attached to any great scientific 
work," as the Doctor takes care to remind us, this is no proof that, 
if he did write a scientific work, it would not be a good one; as the 
fact that a man has written one or more learned works is no sure 
guarantee that he may not sometime be guilty of writing a bad book. 
We could point to a distinguished author, who has written most meri- 
torious works; and that same learned author consented " at the request 
of ecclesiastical superiors," to write a book on education, which is ad- 
mitted by the better and more intelligent class of Catholics of this 
country to be of very questionable merit. And the same learned 
author has defended this book by a second work entitled a Rejoinder 
to Critics, which added little to his reputation. ^ 

XI. Dangerous Tactics. 

We shall only deal with one other point which Dr. Bouquillon en- 
deavored to make against his critics. In his first pamphlet (p. 23) 

' The most singular performance in connection with this controversy, that has come 
to our notice, is the attempt of the Rev. Thomas O'Gorman, D.D., of the Catholic 
University, in a letter to the Michigmi Catholic, January 28, 1892, to reconcile the 
teaching of Father Higgins with that of Dr. Bouquillon. He might as well try to 
bridge chaos. 



Dangerous Tactics. 115 

the Doctor, to prove the authority of the state over education, made the 
following argument: — 

We affirm that the state has authority over education. This authority is included ini 
that general authority with which the state is invested for promoting the common good,, 
for guaranteeing to each man his rights, for preventing abuses. Education, well-directed 
or ill-dii-ected, is one of the great means of good or of evil to the social body. It is on 
the education he receives that the future of the child depends ; and the child needs pro- 
tection all the more that he is weak and at the mercy of others. There is no need that 
we should insist on this motive, it seems to us self-evident. 

This argument we dismissed as another form of the " impregna- 
ble " argument, which we said might prove anything, or nothing.. 
Father Holaind also (p. 17) finds that it proves too much. Now,. 
the Doctor has discovered that this identical argument has beem 
used by Pope Leo XIII in his Encyclical on the Condition of 
Labor; and he triumphs in this discovery. Well he might, if it were 
so. We shall give the Doctor's statement of his discovery in full 
(Rejoinder, p. 38-39):— 

The argument «(5ai^J2^nZi5> is a weapon of little effect at times, of very careful handling, of" 
some danger to the fencer. If Father Holaind has read the Encyclical Reriun Novartim 
since he wrote that hasty pamphlet of his, he must be sorry that he tried to fence witli 
that treacherous weapon. Let us examine the reasoning of Leo XIII in the question 
of labor. Major: " Eis qui imperant videndum ut communitatem ejusque partes 
tueantur." Minor: " Atqui int. rest salutis cum publicse tum privatae. . . .validos 
adolescere cives, juvandse tutandseque, si res postulat, civitati idoneos." Coiiclusipit : 
" Quamobrem. ... si valetudini noceatur opere immodico, nee ad sexum setatemve ac- 
comodate, plane adhibenda, certos intra fines, vis et actoritas legum." I have reasoned 
in the question of education exactly on the same line as the Pope in the question of 
labor. If the culinary objection of Father Holaind has any force, it hits the Holy 
Father more directly than it hits me; for good victuals are surely of the highest 
importance to the health of the growing citizen. But I hasten to assure Father Ho- 
laind that he is guilty of no irreverence, because his objection is of no account, and Leo 
XIII has quietly brushed it aside with three little words, certos intta fines, which I 
take the liberty of italicising in the quotation. He explains the three little words thus : 
" quos fines eadem, qu?e legum poscit opem, causa determinat, videlicet, non plura 
suscipienda legibus, nee ultra progrediendum quam incommodorum sanatio, vel peri- 
culi depulsio requirat." I had made precisly the same observation : we may grant to 
the state what is reasonable and possible without granting to it what is unreasonable 
and impossible. At any rate does not the strte busy itself witliin reasonable limits 
with the material welfare of the citizens ? Does it not inspect food, meats, drinks, the 
sanitary conditions of homes, the justness of weights and measures and a thousand! 
other matters? Why then give out exclamations of holy horror when you are told that 
this same authority, that does all those things without a protest from you, can protect 
the intellectual and moral life of the children of the people by imposing a minimum of 
instruction ! 



114 Si(pplciiiciit. — Dr. Bouqnillon s Rejoinder. 

If we examine the Encyclical itself we find that the discovery is for 
the Doctor not such a happy one after all. First, the Pope carefully 
warns his readers that the right of the individual and family should not 
be absorbed by the state ; and that both the individual and family should 
be allowed freedom of action as far as this is possible without preju- 
dice to the common good or to the rights of others. ' These two 
conditions are supposed in the Pope's argument. And even then 
legislation, or coaction, must be restricted to certain limits {cerlos 
ititra fines). If the learned Doctor will take the trouble to examine the 
Pope's argument once more, he will find that in all the cases he 
enumerates there is an evident violation of right and positive detri- 
ment to the common good implied.'^ But we would ask the Doctor 
what right is violated or wherein is the common good prejudiced by 
the fact that parents are allowed to educate their own children, with- 
out let or hinderance or interference on the part of public authority, 
so long as no flagrant breach of duty can be imputed to them. The 
Doctor says he ''made precisely the same observation as the Pope." 
He made the observations contained in his argument, which we have 
given in full, and no more. The Doctor, it seems to us, has in this 
place had recourse to " a weapon of less effect, of more careful handling, 
and of more danger to the fencer " than Father Holaind^s argument 
ab absurdo. If the Doctor has had the misfortune unwittingly to use a 
fallacious argument, he should endeavor to father the fallacy on the 
Pope. 

The Pope's argument should not be distorted from its proper use 
and meaning. The Pope teaches exactly the contrary of the Doctor's 
thesis in the Encyclical SapienticB ChristiancB : " Parents have by 
nature the strict right (jussuum) to educate their own offspring; and 

•1 Non civeiti, ut diximus, non familiam absorberi a republica rectum est : suam ut- 
Tique facultatem agendi cum libertate permittere cequum est, quantum incolumi bono 
communi et sine cuiusquam injuria potest. 

2 Quamobrem, si quando fiat, ut quippiam turbarum impendeat ob secessionem op- 
ificum, aut intermissas ex composito operas, ut naturalia families nexa apud proletaries 
relaxentur : ut religio in opificibus violetur non satis impertiendo commodi ad officia 
-pietatis : si periculum in officinis integritati morum aut ingruat a sexu promiscuo, al- 
iisve perniciosis invitamentis peccandi : aut opificum ordinem herilis ordo iniquis pre- 
mat oneribus, vel aiienis a persona ac dignitate humana conditionibus affligat ; si val- 
etudini nocealur opere immodico, nee ad sexum setateinve accommodato, /it's i» cattsis 
-plane adhibendn, cerios intra fines, vis et auctoritas legum. 



Dangerous Tactics. 1 1 5 

to this right is added the duty of directing the education and in- 
struction of their children to that end for which God has blessed 
them with issue. Therefore parents must use every effort and endeavor to 
ivard off all unjust interference in this ?7iatier, and by all means effect that the 
education of their childrert is under iheir own control^ as is meet in accordance, 
with Christian usage." ' 

Here we take leave of Dr. Bouquillon. We have followed him with 
that attention and interest, which the work of so eminent an author 
seemed to demand. In so doing we considered fairness a serious, 
duty which we owed to him, to the public, and to ourselves; and we 
trust that we have succeeded in giving an impartial estimate of the 
works we have undertaken to review. We were forced to point out 
not a few grave errors or misconceptions. AVe have done so frankly, 
but without ill will. And we sincerely hope that, while we have suc- 
ceeded in proving to the reader that Dr. Bouquillon's views on educa- 
tion are in themselves unsound and dangerous, and prejudicial to- 
Catholic education in this country, we have detracted nothing from 
his true merits as an author and a scholar. 



Note. — Since we sent this Supplement to the press various other 
contributions have been added to the literature on the school ques- 
tion. Among the most remarkable that came to our notice, apart 
from the criticisms of Father Holaind, Father Higgins and of the 
Civilta Cattolica already noticed, is an article on Secular Tdiication by 
Rt. Rev. Bishop Becker in the American Cat/i. Quarterly, January 
1892, articles in the American Ecclesiastical Review by Rt. Rev. Bishop 
Chatard, by Rt. Rev. Dr. Messmer, Bishop-elect, by Rev. Dr. Laugh- 
lin. Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and by Rev. H.. 
J. Heuser, editor of Eccl. Review, all bearing on this controversy, and 
all unanimous in their condemnation of Dr. Bouquillon's teaching. 
We understand that Judge E. F. Dunne has already filed his third 
Argument on Compulsoiy Education in the Supreme Court of Ohio, 

* Natura parentes habent jus suum instituendi, quos procrearint ; hoc adjuncto officio, 
ut cum fine, cujus gratia sobolem Dei beneficio susceperunt, ipsa educatio conveniat et 
doctrina puerilis. Igitiir parentibus est necessarhtm eniti et contendere, ict omnem in hoc 
genere propulsent injuriam; omnitioqice pervincant, tit sua m potestate sit ediicare liberos,, 
uti par est 7nore Christiana. 



1 1 6 Supplement — Dr. Bouquilloiis Rejoinder. 

which together with his previous Arguments, to which we have 
already referred, will soon be before the public in book form. A new 
edition of Rt. Rev. Bishop McQuaid's publications on the school 
question is likewise in requisition, and will, as we understand,, soon 
be forthcoming. In referring to the most recent literature on this 
momentous question we cannot omit to mention the gallant work 
•clone by some of our Catholic editors, particularly by Dr. Conde B. 
Fallen of the Church Progress, St. Louis, and by Doctor Michael 
"Walsh of the Catholic Herald, New York, and the Rev. E. J. McCabe 
of the Catholic Youth, Brooklyn. On the other side, we have not thus 
far met with even a serious attempt at a defence of Dr. Bouquillon's 
teaching in any reputable Catholic paper or magazine. 



THE END. 



THE RESPECTIVE RIGHTS AND DUTIES 
OF FA-MILI, STATE AND CHURCH 



IN REGARD TO 



EDU CATION . 

— BY — 



SECOND EDITION. 



12nio. <50 Pages. Paper, 25 Cts. 

100 Copies, $15.00. 



NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 



'• One of the ablest, clearest and fullest pamphlets on the education 
^question, that we have read for many years ; . . . a masterly pro- 
duction by one thoroughly familiar with his subject, both as to what 
Catholic theology demands, and the modern statesman denies." — 
■Catholic Review. 

''A very SihXt tssdij , the best we have read on the subject." — The 
Pastor. 

"We recommend to all our readers who are interested in the ed- 
ucation of the young this masterly little pamphlet. — Month. 

This pamphlet has been placed on the catalogue of the "xoo best 
Catholic books" in the English language by two different correspond- 
ents, the president of St. Louis College, and the vice-president of 
Niagara University, in answer to a circular of inquiry sent by the 
■Catholic Review.'' 

" It is one of the ablest essays on the question of education in the 
language. — Ave Maria. 

" Hence we would say, read an essay like this, read it again ; 
. have it read to the young men in their literary gatherings ; 
spread it broadcast among the people. — Anier. Eccl, Review. 

P^R. T^-u^T-^T ac Co. 



Zbc IRiobts of ®ui- Xittle ®nes ; 



Fii^st Principles on Education in Catechetical Form, 
3y Rev, JAMES CONWAY, S. J. 



S2nio^ jtnper, 
" cloth, 



SsEOOND EDITION. 

- 15 cents; per 100, 
25 -' " 



$9.00. 
15,00. 



PRESS NOTICES. 

". . . The booklet of Father Conway, though 
consisting of but fifty-two pages, is a thorough 
compendium of the whole subject of education. 
. . . We can heartily recommend the ' Rights of 
Our Little Ones ' as one of the best contributions 
to the burning question of education that it has 
been our good fortune to read. " — Catholic Advance. 

". . . Its author has known how, in this abrid- 
ment of his larger and more important volume on 
the same subject, to present to the popular eye a 
viultum in parvo of considerable point and inter- 
est. The nature and necessity of education are 
briefly treated of, and also the different attitudes 
Avhich parents, and the State, and the Church as- 
sume with regard to it ; all leading to the conclu- 
sion that such attitudes should be alike in their 
difference, and especially that the right and duties 
of parents should not be made to, and should not, 
yield to State interference. The whole matter is 
put into a nutshell ; and in the little book many 
people will find set answers to questions they are 
forced to put to themselves, especially just now, 
on an affair of such vital importance." — Weekly 
Jiegister, London. 

". . . The catechetical form places before the 
mind of the reader, in a clear manner, the great 
and important questions involved in the subject of 
education, and presents, concisely and impres- 
sively, the answers to the same. It should be 
circulated far and wide by all who have at heart 
the true education of 'the little ones.'" — Notre 
Dame Scholastic. 

"... This book sets forth very clearly the 
rights of the Catholic Church to provide for the 
complete religious education of her children. It 
makes an interesting little volume." — Pittsburgh 
Catholic. 

"... No person of sane mind, after carefully 
conning the pages of the pamphlet, will dispute 
the position of the Catholic Church on the school 
question. The author is to be congratulated on 
the inimitable manner in which he has condensed 
so much information in so small a space." — Catho- 
lic Journal, Rochester. 

"... A small, little work, but in worth it will 
outweigh some very large books." — Kansas 
Catholic. 



". . . This little booklet treats of the respective 
rights and duties of family, State and Church in 
regard to education in the style of questions and 
answers which cannot fail to fully instruct the 
reader on the great question of the day." — Catho- 
lic 3Iirror. 

"... This is a little book, or, as the author 
calls it, a " booklet," of only fifty-two pages ; but 
it is a great book, nevertheless. Look at the titles 
of the four chapters it contains : Nature and Ne- 
cessity of Education; Parents and Education; The 
State and Education ; The Church and Education. 
These four subjects are treated, in question and 
answer, so fully that one needs not to buy or study 
a large book on the general subject." — Michigan 
Catholic. 

". . . While especially suited for young readers, 
it possesses the highest interest for the most cul- 
tured mind. In precise and concise phrase, it 
admirably formulates the personal right of the 
child, the domestic right of the parent and the 
divine right of the Church ; and traces to its or- 
igin the State monopoly which unfortunately ex- 
ists in many lands. This valuable pamphlet should 
have a place in every home." — Catholic Union and 
Times. 

", . . Sets forth in clear, intslligible English 
facts which every one interested in the education 
of ' the little ones ' should know. " — Catholic 
Standard, New Haven, 



". . . This is a book of even greater importance. 
Those who have the greatest need of that book 
are the ones who will not be willing to buy it. 
The best way to spread it around — and it should 
be spread around — is that all the friends of 
Christian education procure each a copy of il, and 
make its importance known. This will serve as a. 
leaven which will soon spread throughout I lie 
whole mass of population. Practical Christians, 
buy some copies and distribute them among those 
who cannot see the necessity of Godly education." 
— Our Parochial Schools. 

"... Individuals who have at heart the cause 
of Catholic education and the welfare of society 
must try to put this and similar reading into as 
many hands as possible." — Le Contettlx Leade •. 



THE STATE LAST 



JL sarxjr)Y 



OF/ 



DOCTOR BOUQUILLON'S PAMPHLET 

Educahon : To ivhom does it belong f 



Mitb a Supplement 

DR. BOUQUILLON'S REJOINDER TO CRITICS. 



— BY — 

l^&v. James SeNWAY, ^. J., 

Canisius College, Buffalo, N, Y. 
SECOND REVISED EDITION. 

1892. 



FR. PUSTET 
Printer to the Holy Apostolic See and the S. Congregation of Rites. 



P^R. PxjsxE:"r & Co., 

New York and Cincinnati. 



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